


The Wolf's Head

by corrielle



Category: Robin Hood (BBC 2006)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Big Bang Challenge, But doesn't play a big enough role for me to tag him, Gen, Robin is here too, big bang hood 2009, but you don't have to squint hard, old fic import, only guy/marian if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-22
Updated: 2009-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:53:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 39,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23801116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corrielle/pseuds/corrielle
Summary: When Guy of Gisborne takes up residence at Locksley, Robin's aging mother is still living in the manor.  Her and Marian's influence lead Guy to make a fateful choice when the sheriff orders him to go against his conscience.  If he's going to survive, he'll need friends and a plan, and lucky for him, he just might have both.
Relationships: Guy of Gisborne/Marian of Knighton
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm posting this to Ao3 in April of 2020, and the girlfriend mentioned below is now my wife. Still, after all these years... 
> 
> Many thanks to [](https://endcredits.livejournal.com/profile)[endcredits](https://endcredits.livejournal.com/), who graciously agreed to be my beta at short notice and gave me both excellent advice and much-needed encouragement. Also, this story probably wouldn't be here without my girlfriend Rae, who read it first.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guy of Gisborne arrives in Locksley for the first time as Lord of the Manor in Robin's absence.

The earth was cold and hard under the horses' hooves as the riders entered Locksley. The first frost of winter was still on the ground, and the brown, bare stalks in fallow fields were sheathed in silver.

Guy of Gisborne rode at the side of the Sheriff of Nottingham, and fifteen armed men in black and yellow followed close behind. There was not a soul to be seen outside, though Guy thought he saw nervous faces half in shadow as he passed by. Even deserted, Locksley looked to be a well-kept village. The thatch on most roofs was new and clean, the walls of the peasants' homes were in good repair, and the livestock he could see from the road looked healthy and well-fed. He allowed himself a brief smile of satisfaction. Locksley was indeed a fine manor, and it was soon to be his.  
They were nearly at the door of the manor when a single man with iron grey hair and broad shoulders came out to greet them. Guy recognized him as the steward of the manor. Thornton, Guy thought his name was. The steward cast a disapproving glance at all of the horses blowing steam into the sharp morning air.

"Will my Lords be requiring stabling for your animals and food for your men?" he asked.

"No need for that. _Most_ of us won't be here long," the Sheriff said, with a significant glance at Guy that was lost on no one.

The Sheriff dismounted and strode into the manor house as if he owned it with Guy at his heels. The steward shut the door as soon as they were inside, barely allowing Guy time to step into the room. A bright, crackling fire burned high in the hearth, and the lady of the manor sat in a chair beside it, ready to receive them. She had a blanket draped across her lap and a fur-lined cape over her shoulders, and yet she still shivered at the cold the open door had let in.

"A pleasure to see you again, Lady Elaine," the Sheriff said. "You're looking well for a woman who hasn't been out of her bedchamber in a month."

If Elaine of Locksley took offense at the Sheriff's manner, she did not show it. She was a small woman, well into middle age. Her thick blonde braid was streaked with grey and silver, and her skin was dull and pale. Her grey eyes, however, were still keen and aware, and she regarded Vasey coolly as he approached her.

"I thank you for your concern, My Lord Sheriff," she said when he was standing before her, "though I fear I will take no pleasure in your visit to my home today. I know why you are here, and it does not sit well with me." There was a sharpness in her voice that, had she been younger and less frail, might have given the Sheriff pause.

"Come now, Lady Elaine," Vasey said, placing one hand on the back of her chair and leaning in close to her. "Everyone in the shire knows that you are sick, weak, unable to fulfill your duties as master, or mistress, in your case, of the manor."  
"And they also know that you would dearly like to see the lands I hold for my son pass to one of your men," she retorted.

The Sheriff feigned shock. "I am… wounded," he said, clutching at his heart with his free hand. "I stand to gain nothing from this. My concern is for the people of this village, and for you. You say you hold the lands in your son's stead, and the man I've appointed to oversee them will simply do the same. When your boy… what was his name?"

"Robin."

"When Robin comes home, all covered in dust and glory I'm sure, his lands will be returned to him, having been well taken care of while he was away, and in the mean time, you will be able to rest, free of responsibility for the day to day affairs of the village."

She did not ask what would happen if her son did not come home.

"Enough," she said abruptly. "You know I cannot win this argument, My Lord Sheriff, so please, just tell me. Who is it you have brought?" She peered at Guy, who was still waiting a respectful distance from the two of them. "This is not the man you wished to put in my place when you tried to take it from me last summer."

The Sheriff's response to her reminder of his defeat was to motion Guy forward, and the room was silent but for the tread of his boots on the floor as Guy came to stand before her.

"Sir Guy of Gisborne, My Lady," Guy said, bowing formally to her.

She smiled slightly at him then, and for the first time he saw a remnant of the beauty she must once have possessed.

"Well met, Sir Guy," she said. "I would say that you are welcome in my house, but I would not have my first words to you be a lie."

Guy was taken aback by her honesty, and he hurriedly discarded the carefully chosen words he had been planning to greet her with.

"Perhaps I will be able to prove that I deserve to have you think better of me," he said.

"Perhaps." She did not sound convinced.

The Sheriff, who had been observing them from the other side of the hearth and warming his hands near the flames, rubbed his hands together and said, "Good, good… Now that the two of you know each other, I'll be going. I'm sure you both have many things to discuss."

The Sheriff turned to go, and it felt odd to Guy not to be following him outside. Vasey wasn't ready to leave just yet, though. Just as the steward opened the door, the Sheriff turned sharply back toward the hearth where Guy was standing.

"I forgot to ask you, Gisborne," he said. "How many of your men would you like me to leave behind?"

"Five should be enough for now, the rest can come with my things later," Guy said.

"Gisborne hasn't had time to tell you this yet, so I will," the Sheriff said, shifting his attention to Lady Elaine. "We both agreed that these are difficult times, and Locksley needs protection and stability. So, Sir Guy has asked me to allow thirty of his soldiers to come with him to his new home. You can expect them before dusk tonight."

Elaine did not reply, but from the stony expression on her face, she was not happy about the prospect of having so many new men who would need to be fed and housed on her land. The Sheriff, glibly unaware of the lady's displeasure, was out the door and calling for his horse without a second glance.

"Too many," Elaine said in a soft voice.

Guy's eyes narrowed. Vasey had been out the door for only a few moments and already she was trying to undermine his authority and question his decisions. It was just as the Sheriff had warned him it would be.

"What was that?" Guy asked, hoping that she would not want to repeat her opinion when he would be sure to hear.

"Thirty is too many," Elaine said. "I do not mean to tell you your business, but I know how much food we have, and I know how difficult it will be to find beds and supplies for thirty grown men. They will be cramped and hungry, and the villagers in Locksley will be even hungrier because your men will eat the much of the stores we have put away for winter. Some of the peasants will fall ill, some will die, and the ones who are left will be weak. It will be no easy task to find strong workers for the fields when spring returns."

"How many do you think Locksley could support, then?" Guy asked quickly. He could still hear the Sheriff and his men outside the door. There was still time to change the plan without losing face.

"Fifteen at the very most," Lady Elaine said.

Guy nodded, then he went to the door and threw it open. Vasey was already on horseback, waiting for the rest of his guards to form up around him.

"Sir! About the men... I believe twenty will be enough," Guy said. Elaine looked neither angry nor surprised that he had not come down as far as she had asked, and he was determined to make no apology for it.

The Sheriff shrugged. "It's your manor, Gisborne," he said before digging his heels into his horse's side and riding away in a spray of dirt and frost with the rest of his guards struggling to keep up.

#####

On Guy's first evening at Locksley, the manor's kitchen staff served roasted pheasant and a fine brown ale from a brewer in the village. He ate at a long table in the hall that was empty save for himself and Lady Elaine, and she said very little to him at first. It would have been a pleasant change from the court at Nottingham, where every meal was accompanied by the constant hum of conversation, but her silence was unnerving.

When the meal was done and the plates were cleared away, the lady's maidservant helped her from the table to her chair by the fire and went upstairs to fetch a basket from her chamber.

"Would you care to stay with me while I work, Sir Guy?" she asked, pulling white cloth and a length of delicate lace from her basket. "This house can be lonely in the evenings, with so few of us here."

Guy was not worried about being lonely, but he had no wish to be rude, so he brought a chair from the table and set it on the other side of the fire. He wondered if she wished for him to talk to her to pass the time. He was not good at conversation for its own sake.

When he was settled, without looking up from her stitching, Lady Elaine asked, "Do you know why I did not contest your appointment here? It would have been my right, you know, to have my case heard in the Sheriff's court for all to see."

"Because you knew you would lose," Guy said. If she was going to be blunt, he would as well.

"And yet I could have made my displeasure known," she reminded him. "I chose not to. Because of you."

"Me?" Guy looked up at her, suddenly alert and wary. He wasn't sure he wanted this woman who had no reason to like him taking too much of an interest in him. "Why?"

Elaine looked up from her work and studied him for a moment, as if trying to remember something she had known once but forgotten.

"You don't remember me, do you? Not surprising… you would have had no reason to. But I remember you, Guy of Gisborne. You and your family."

"What do they have to do with this?" Guy asked sharply.

"I remember your mother as a kind woman and your father as an honorable man," she said, carefully drawing her needle through cloth and lace. "I have no love for our new sheriff, but you, I thought, might be different… if you were your parents' son."

Guy turned his face toward the fire.

"Most people remember my father as a leper and my mother as the woman who sheltered him," he said.

"Is that how you remember them?" she asked. She didn't wait long for an answer before continuing. "I am sorry if it is. I have often wondered what happened to you and your sister after you… lost your parents. It is good to see you again."  
  
She didn't mention the fire, for which Guy was grateful. She didn't have to. They both knew what had happened and who had been at fault, and she was not so cruel as to remind him of what he had done.

"And… you as well," Guy said, somewhat stiffly. He remembered her, now. She was Lord Malcom's sunny-haired wife, the lady with the kind face and soft voice. She had been one of the first women to befriend his mother when his family had came to Nottinghamshire from France. She hadn't often gone visiting even then, but Guy's mother had gone up to Locksley with herbs and medicines many times, and she always came back smiling. The more he remembered, the less comfortable he was sitting like a conqueror in her hall, in her house.

They talked for a while longer about people Guy had not thought of since he was young, and when the fire grew too dim for Lady Elaine to see her work, she called her maid to help her to her bed. Guy, however, sat for a long time by the glowing coals before seeking sleep in his own fine chamber.

#####

The people of Locksley came to know Guy of Gisborne as a hard master, but not a cruel one. He did not relish enforcing the Sheriff's taxes and dictates, though enforce them he did. Still, the village fared better than others that staggered under the Sheriff of Nottingham's rule. The peasants' faces grew leaner and hungrier as the seasons turned, but no Locksley families were forced to turn beggar, and even the poorest of them always had good seed to plant when spring came. In public, Gisborne maintained that his peasants repaid him with exorbitant interest for the privilege of having anything to put in the ground at all, but everyone in the village knew that when harvest time came, Sir Guy only asked that he be repaid a fair price for what he had given them. They also knew that it was Elaine's voice, always at his ear, that made him so magnanimous, and they blessed her for it.

Because Locksley sent both food and taxes up to Nottingham in abundance, Guy of Gisborne prospered, too. The Sheriff rewarded him with gold and silver, fine horses, and good wine. Some of it Guy saved against the day Robin of Locksley would return from his holy war. Some he spent on tapestries for the manor's walls and plate for its table. And in the dead of winter, he spent his own silver to pay for just enough dry wood to keep many hearth fires from going cold.

As long as Guy sent the Sheriff his tax money, kept his mouth shut except to agree when the nobles met in council, and did nothing to attract undue attention, Vasey left him to his own devices. He grew used to the respect, and even the fear that was sometimes in his peasants' eyes when they looked at him, to standing in a room full of land-holding men and being treated as one of their own, and to the comfort that came with power and position.

He did not, however, grow used to Marian.  
  
At first, she was only one of Elaine's many visitors, the young woman to whom the lady's absent son was betrothed. A constant stream of noble women and merchants' wives and daughters came to the manor to wish the lady well and keep her company for an hour or an afternoon. Usually, having paid his guests the respect they were due, Guy would disappear to his rooms or find that he had pressing business elsewhere on the manor grounds, leaving the ladies to discuss whatever it was women talked about when they were alone. Marian, though, came more often than most, and when she did, Guy lingered. Elaine seemed to welcome his company, and Marian and he soon settled into a sort of prickly familiarity. She was free with her disapproval, and no harsh punishment in Locksley, no necessary show of authority passed without her letting him know exactly what she thought of it, and of him for ordering it. And yet, she was free with kindness as well. No cold, haughty calculation marred Marian's smile or soured her laugh. In that, she was different from every other young woman of noble birth Guy had ever met, and against his better judgment, he trusted her. Slowly, cautiously, he told her of his hopes and ambitions—land of his own, not held in another's stead, stability, wealth, respectability—and though she didn't applaud them, it was enough that he believed she understood them.

#####

The third winter after Guy came to Locksley, the snow fell early. In the space of three days, it covered roofs and fields and roads with a hand's breadth of cold, unrelenting white. The peasants in the village pulled their cloaks more tightly around their shoulders and patched the walls of their houses to keep out the wind, and at the manor, the fire in the great hall burned at all hours of the day.

As Guy sat by the fire with the lady of the house one night just before the new year, Elaine looked up from the Psalter that lay open on her lap.

"May I ask a favor of you, Sir Guy?" she asked.

Guy frowned. She usually dispensed with the 'Sir' when they were alone. "Ask it," he said, leaning forward in his chair.  
  
"Jane Scarlett is dying," she said. "You remember her—Dan Scarlett the carpenter's wife?"

"I know her," Guy said. Mostly, he remembered the fury and the fear on her face on the day he'd ordered that her husband lose his hand for taking one of the King's deer. That had been a bad business. Guy had known that Dan Scarlett wasn't fool enough to poach in Sherwood, but the man had refused to name his sons as the true culprits. The law demanded that someone lose a hand, and Dan Scarlett had confessed loudly and in front of many witnesses. He had given Guy no choice, and the village had lost one of its most valuable craftsmen.  
  
"You should visit her. Take her family some extra meat and drink," Elaine said.  
  
"If you wish. I'll send food with one of my men." He raised his hand to call in a servant.  
  
Elaine shook her head. "It should be you that goes. Her sickness is not catching, and it would mean a great deal to her family."  
  
"They have no reason to want me there," Guy said. "And if what you say is true, she will die soon anyway."  
  
"Yes, she will," Elaine said quietly. "And when she is dead and buried, Dan and her sons will remember that their Lord saw fit to come and comfort them when they had need of it." Seeing his hesitation, she added, "I've known Jane for many years—she was one of the women who attended me when my son was born—and I would like for you to send her my affection and my good wishes. So, if you will not do it for them, then tell yourself that you do for me what I cannot."  
  
Guy wasn't sure he wanted to be well liked. It would be difficult for a Lord who was too close to his peasants to make the cruel but necessary decisions that politics in Nottinghamshire sometimes called for. But, perhaps because Elaine so rarely asked him for personal favors, and perhaps because he could still see the glint of the sun on the axe blade as it came down on Dan Scarlett's hand, Guy relented.

"Fine. I'll go," he said, and he went to tell the servant who waited by the door to run to the stables and ready his horse.  
Guy could feel the cold even through the thick leather of his gloves as he knocked on the door of the Scarlett house. The older Scarlett son, a boy just old enough to be called a man, answered the door.

"My Lord," he said in a flat voice.

Guy drew himself up to his full height, and, without meeting the boy's eyes, said, "I have had word of your mother's illness, and I've brought food to share with all of you while you tend to her."  
  
The boy studied him for a long moment, and Guy had the uncomfortable suspicion that his intentions were being weighed and measured by a peasant who had no right to make any such judgments.  
  
"Thank you, Sir Guy," he said at last, then turned over his shoulder and called, "Luke! Come and help me."  
  
Guy stood to one side as the brothers brought in a side of beef, a small cask of ale, a bag of flour, and a bag of dried apples from the manor's store room.  
  
"There's over a fortnight's worth of food here," the young man who had opened the door said when they were finished. He was still wary, as if he wondered what price Guy would extract from them in turn for the kindness.  
  
"I was convinced that the generosity was warranted," Guy told him.  
  
"And we're grateful for it," the boy said.  
  
Guy was about to turn and go when Dan Scarlett called from inside, "Your manners, Will! Invite Sir Guy in out of the cold!"  
  
"Will you come in, My Lord?" Will Scarlett asked. Guy could not decide whether the offer was genuine, or made out of a sense of obligation, and young Will Scarlett's eyes were impossible to read.  
  
"I will," Guy said. Then, he ducked under the lintel and for the first time since he had come to Locksley, he entered a peasant's home as a guest and not a master.

#####

Jane Scarlett died two days later, and Elaine paid the priest at the church to have prayers said for her soul.  
  
After Jane's death, things were different between Guy and the people who were in his charge. Some began to wave at him when he rode through the village, and they spoke more freely and laughed more often in his presence. Guy learned their names and their children's names, and he showed his face at marriages and burials when he could. Will Scarlett always met him with a quiet nod of respect, and when the spring came, he crafted Guy a fine English longbow at a price far below its worth.  
  
They went on like this for a little more than a year, and sometimes, it was easy for Guy to forget that Locksley was not his, that Elaine's son would one day come back, and that Marian only ever smiled at him in friendship.  
  
Then, one April morning, Robin of Locksley returned home—and in an instant, everything was changed.  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin returns to Locksley, and Guy has a choice to make.

The Sheriff was not happy to see Guy lose Locksley, and though he called a feast in honor of Robin's safe return, he also arrested three men from the village for stealing grain and sentenced them to hang the morning after.

The festivities were strained. No one talked too long or laughed too loudly, and the nobles in attendance, as if to show that they had no need of it, barely touched the abundance of food the Sheriff had ordered brought up from the castle's kitchens. Almost no one spoke to Robin of Locksley beyond a few murmured pleasantries, yet every eye in the Great Hall was on him, waiting to see what he would do. He had barely been back a day, and he had already spoken out strongly against the Sheriff's taxes and called the Sheriff's punishments cruel and ruthless to his face. Young Locksley, it was agreed, was either very naïve or very foolish.

Though the Sheriff had ordered him to be present, Guy wished to be anywhere but where he was. With Robin's return, he was landless once again, a man with an empty title and no holdings. His possessions and his wealth now sat in a room in the wing of the castle reserved for the Sheriff's favored men, and Vasey had promised him that he would not be forgotten, but it did not mean that he wanted to celebrate the man who had come back to take his place.

Even now, Robin was talking to Marian. She, at least, did not turn away from him after welcoming him home. It was to be expected, and perhaps excused. She had been betrothed to Locksley, after all, and further connection with him would not hurt her. Guy wondered what it was they spoke of. Both of them wore serious expressions, and once when Marian finished speaking, Robin shook his head slowly, and her face grew set and angry.

Behind them, the Sheriff approached, resplendent in his ermine cloak and carrying a full goblet of wine in his hand. He tilted his head to one side, as if listening to their conversation.

Quickly, Guy made his way to Marian's side. Locksley was not happy to see him, but he and Guy nodded at each other in acknowledgement anyway.

"Lady Marian," Guy said. "May I have the pleasure of your company?" He offered her his arm in such a way that she could not help but see that Vasey was nearby.

"Of course, Sir Guy," Marian said demurely.

Robin glared at Guy as they left, and Guy smirked back at him. She may have loved Robin once, but she did not seem unhappy to leave his side.

"How long had he been listening?" Marian asked as they moved away from Robin and the Sheriff stepped into the empty space beside him.  
  
"Not long," Guy told her. "Certainly not long enough to hear anything foolish the two of you might have been saying."  
  
Marian let go of his arm and looked over her shoulder. They had moved away from the rest of the guests and into one of the corridors that led away from the hall.  
  
"You needn't lecture me about caution," she said. "And besides, sadness for the sake of men about to be hanged is not yet a crime."  
  
"Not a crime, no, but too much sympathy can be dangerous," Guy said.  
  
She took a step back. "How can you, of all people, say that? These are your men who will die in the morning!"  
  
"They are not my men any more," Guy reminded her. "They are in Robin of Locksley's care, and they are his responsibility. If he wishes to speak to the Sheriff on their behalf, ask for lenience…"  
  
"He has, this afternoon, but I suspect you already know that," Marian said, narrowing her eyes at him in annoyance. "And he accomplished nothing. In fact, one poor fool who thought he could claim to be from Locksley and be freed is going to get a noose around his neck as well, now. These men don't need lenience, Guy. They haven't done anything wrong."  
  
"But the grain was stolen," Guy insisted, shifting uneasily. He had heard the tone of voice Marian was using before, and it worried him very much. She was convinced she was in the right, and would act in accordance with her conscience unless he could persuade her otherwise. "I saw the evidence, and I know very well how much the manor had in its stores."  
  
"Yes, but think on this: you were a good master. Well-liked. Why, then, would your peasants steal from you? Why would they not simply come to you if they were hungry to the point of thieving?"  
  
"Perhaps they were ungrateful," he suggested.  
  
Marian gave him a withering look. "You can't possibly believe that."  
  
She was right. Guy did not believe that the Scarlett boys would steal from the manor, and young Benedict was more timid than a mouse. He was no thief. But the Sheriff said that the crime was theirs, and there was nothing to be done about it.

"Then what am I to believe?" he asked her.

"Believe me when I say that I do not know how, but the Sheriff is testing Robin. He probably had his men steal the grain themselves. He will try to push Robin to act rashly, to defy the order of execution. But Robin can't refuse. You know that. If he pushes the Sheriff too far, he'll strike out at Robin. And at his mother. Robin won't take that risk."

"And that is wise of him," Guy said.  
  
"But these men will die for the sake of this test! Men you know, men who trusted you, men who looked to you for help!"  
  
Guy's fingers curled into fists. "What would you have me do, Marian?" he demanded.  
  
Marian looked relived, as if she had been waiting for him to ask just that question.  
  
"I am about to tell you a secret," she whispered. He had to lean in to hear her, and he could feel her breath on his face. "But before I tell you… you must promise me that if you will not help us, you will not hinder us either, and that you will not share my secret."  
  
"What are you planning to do?" Guy asked, grabbing her arm. Whatever it was, it would be dangerous, and he would not allow her to put herself in harm's way even if it meant locking her in a spare closet until the hanging was over.  
  
Marian removed her arm from his grasp. "Promise first," she said again.  
  
"I swear. Not a word."  
  
Marian smiled, and Guy was glad despite himself that he had made her happy.  
  
"I know the identity of the Night Watchman," Marian told him. "And I know he plans to attempt a rescue at the hanging tomorrow."  
  
"The Night Watchman?" Guy scoffed. "He's a do-gooder in a mask. He'll stand no chance against the Sheriff's soldiers."  
  
"You underestimate him. I know his plan, and it is a good one. But… it needs you to succeed. Once the prisoners are freed, they will need a way out of the castle, and I do not think the Sheriff will oblige them by leaving the front gate open. If there was a way you could get the key to the South door in the abandoned wing…"  
  
"How do you know about that?" Guy asked. The door was half-hidden behind old crates in a portion of the castle that hadn't been used for many years. It was one of Vasey's many escape routes that were supposed to be kept secret.  
  
All Marian said was, "I listen when people talk. Now, will you help the Night Watchman, or will you not?" There was a finality about her question, as if his answer would change everything between them, one way or another.  
  
"I'll let them out," Guy said, thinking himself mad even as the words left his mouth. If he was caught, he would hang in the company of four peasants and a masked man who had been fool enough to think he could snatch lives from Vasey's grasp, laugh at him in the seat of his power, and get away with it.  
  
Marian breathed a sigh of relief, but before she could respond, Guy said, "One condition. You aren't going to be involved in this."  
  
"Of course not." Marian laughed. "That would be foolish of me. I won't even be in the castle tomorrow morning. I'll be visiting friends at a manor across the river. Does that satisfy you?" The way she raised her eyebrows at him seemed to suggest that her safety was none of his concern.  
  
"It does."

"I knew you were a good man, Guy," she said, laying her hand across his forearm. Her fingers were pale against the dark leather of his sleeve. "And I wish you good luck tomorrow."

There was a swell of music and voices from the hall, and both of them turned their heads toward it.

"They've cleared the floor for dancing," Guy said. "We've been gone too long. We should return."

"Yes, we should," Marian said. She took her hand from his arm and went on ahead of him, disappearing into the crowd while he still lingered in the shadows of the corridor.  
  


#####

Clouds sat low on the horizon at dawn on the morning of the hanging, and by the time the sun was up and a crowd had gathered in the square, the sky had grown grey and featureless, and the sun was a dim, sallow disk burning sullenly overhead. Tension knotted in Guy’s shoulders as he stood at the Sheriff’s side on the steps to the castle. Even though no one in the crowd voiced it, their muted anger was thick and stifling in the stillness before the prisoners were brought up from the dungeon.

Vasey seemed to revel in it. He greeted those who had come to watch with a false, nasty geniality, and as the drum began to sound in advance of the condemned, he tapped his hand on his leg in time with the beats. At last, the prisoners stood on the platform of the scaffold, hands tied behind their backs. Vasey beckoned Robin of Locksley to come and stand with him on the steps, and with a flourish, the Sheriff handed him the rolled up order of execution.  
  
As Locksley untied the order and held it in front of him, a voice from the middle of the square shouted, "Murderer!" Guy did not see who had said it, but from the way the crowd murmured in agreement, it could have been any one of them.  
  
"Come, come, good people!" the Sheriff shouted over the rumbles of discontent. "Your young Lord Locksley is doing nothing more than what is _right_ , than what is _good_. Is it heroic to let criminals go unpunished? No! Is it kindhearted to let these knaves steal from their master and their village?" He shook his head like a father explaining a deep truth to a small child. "Of course it isn't. And so, I say that we should applaud his bravery, his uprightness, his leadership." The Sheriff began to clap slowly, and each time his hands came together, the sound echoed against the high walls. Robin kept his eyes forward and his face calm, but Guy recognized the strain at the corners of his eyes, the control of a warrior who had decided that this was not the time to fight.  
  
Robin unrolled the parchment that the Sheriff had given him and began to read, and ropes were fitted around the prisoners' necks.  
  
"Let it be heard and known about the lands and realms of Richard, His Majesty, King of England," Robin read, "that on this, the 26th day of April, in the year of our Lord, 1192, the following men, having been tried under law and found guilty—Benedict Giddens of Locksley, Will Scarlett, of Locksley, Luke Scarlett, of Locksley, Allan a Dale of Locksley—these same men have been sentenced to be hanged by a rope until they are dead."  
  
The Sheriff nodded to the executioner, and he moved to kick the stool out from under Will Scarlett's feet. At that moment, a single figure near the foot of the scaffold elbowed the guard at the bottom of the stairs in the chin. The guard's head snapped back, and the figure rushed up the stairs, his long brown cloak swirling behind him. The Night Watchman had made his entrance at last. He found his footing on the scaffold quickly, then he lunged forward and knocked the executioner to the ground. Though the Night Watchman was a small man, the force and velocity of his attack knocked the larger man on his back, and the force of the fall had him gasping for air.  
  
The Night Watchman drew a short knife from his belt and cut the ropes that bound Will Scarlett's hands behind his back.

"Get on that platform! Stop that man!" the Sheriff yelled. He glared over at Robin of Locksley, who shrugged and held up his hands as if to say, "I have nothing to do with this." His innocent act, however, was ruined when he had the temerity to wink at Vasey. The fool even had the beginnings of a satisfied smile turning up the corners of his lips.  
  
The Sheriff's guards tried to follow his orders, but the people, who had been content to be quiet until the Night Watchman appeared, were cheering and pushing in as close to the scaffold as possible, making it impossible for the guards to move, or even to draw their swords. Vasey shoved the member of his personal guard who stood nearest him toward the commotion.  
  
"Help them! Cut through the crowd if you must!"  
  
With one man free, the Night Watchman passed a second knife to Will, and the two of them went to work on freeing the other men. Benedict half stumbled, half fell from the stool he had been standing on when the cords that tied his hands were cut and the noose was lifted from around his neck, and the stranger from Dale shuddered in distaste as he passed the rope back over his head and let it drop.  
  
The Night Watchman ran to the edge of the scaffold and motioned for the others to join him. Every eye in the square was on him, and so when he took off one of his gloves, tossed it onto the ground a few feet away from him, and pointed emphatically at where it landed, the people around it parted as cleanly as a tailor's shears cut cloth. The Night Watchman leaped from the platform and landed in a crouch, picking up his glove at he did so. The other men followed him, and instead of running toward the portcullis, as the guards at the perimeter of the crowd had expected them to do, they ran straight toward the entrance to the keep.  
  
Neither Guy nor Robin made any move to stop them, a fact which seemed to enrage the Sheriff even more.  
  
"Gisborne!" he bellowed. "Are you useless as well as landless? Get after them!"  
  
Guy pointed at the first three guards to make their way back through the crowd. "You three, take the upper floors." Two more men scrambled up the stairs, and Guy ordered them to secure the entrances to the Great Hall. Another five were sent to secure the Sheriff's treasure room, and three more followed Guy when he finally ran into the castle.  
  
Guy considered himself lucky that the castle was in an uproar. The noise outside and the unceremonious intrusion of the guards had the servants frightened, and frightened people screamed and made all sorts of other convenient noises. As Guy and his men made their way through the castle, a piercing female screech sounded somewhere nearby.  
  
"You two," Guy said to the two men bringing up the rear, "go find out what that was."  
  
He lost his last man when they passed by the kitchen, which was full of curious scullery maids.  
  
"Search the kitchen staff," he ordered. "Make sure they're not trying to blend in with the castle servants."  
  
The guard immediately began shouting for the maids to line up, and the more flirtatious among them didn't seem to mind being inspected in the least.  
  
Once he was reasonably sure that no one was following him, Guy doubled back the way he had come. The main door leading to the South wing of the castle was not barred, but it was still heavy, and it groaned on its hinges as Guy swung it open. He looked for footprints in the dust to see if the Night Watchman and the peasants had already passed this way, but there were none. He reminded himself to send a patrol down the hallway where he now stepped some time soon. It would not do to have his footprints be the only ones in sight.  
  
When he reached the secret door, he thought he was alone at first. He could hear nothing but his own breathing, and nothing moved in the dull light that filtered in from an arrow slit high above. Then, he heard soft footfalls and the rustle of clothing in the shadows to his left, and the Night Watchman stepped out from behind a corner, knife in hand.  
  
Guy put his hands up. "It's me," he said. "You know who I am?"  
  
The Night Watchman nodded, and the Scarlett brothers and the other peasants came out into the hallway. The man from Dale looked confused.  
  
"I'm not being funny…" he whispered, "but weren't you one of the ones standing by all high and mighty while we almost got hanged?"  
  
"We can trust him, Allan," Will assured him. The man called Allan still looked dubious about the idea of accepting Guy's help.  
  
"You can trust me, or you can find your own way out of the castle. Now, help me move these crates. Quickly. All of you," Guy said. They were quick to obey, even Allan, and they had the door cleared in less than a minute. Guy did not look forward to putting them back they way they had been on his own. It would take more time than he would have liked, but there was no one he could call for help.  
  
Only a simple wooden latch held the door in place, and when Guy flipped it open, the door swung out into an empty alleyway in Nottingham.  
  
"Go quickly," Guy said.  
  
The peasants slipped through the door first. Will Scarlett stopped in front of Guy as he passed.  
  
"I won't forget this," Will said gravely.  
  
Guy had never quite mastered the art of accepting gratitude from others, so he simply nodded in acknowledgment. It seemed to be enough, though, and Will followed his brother into the alley.  
  
When only the Night Watchman remained, Guy studied the man who had led them all into this for the first time. He was a good deal shorter than Guy was, and not very bulky, either. A young man, perhaps? An idealistic younger son of one of the local nobles? It was difficult to say. The cloak he wore pulled over his head was made of plain brown cloth, and the mask that covered the upper part of his face was dark leather. The rest of his clothes were just as unassuming—a dark leather vest, a loose brown shirt, and boots that looked like they had been made for riding that came halfway up his calves. The Night Watchman didn't let Guy stare for long, though. He hadn't spoken the whole time, and he said nothing now as he and Guy stood alone by the secret door.  
  
"Will you tell me who you are?" Guy asked.  
  
The Night Watchman shook his head, but he reached into a pocket sewn into the inside of his cloak and pulled out a folded scrap of parchment. He held the bit of paper out to Guy, who took it, unfolded it, and read the two words written in small, well-formed letters: "Thank you." Guy looked up to find the man still standing before him.  
  
" _I_ won't be thanking _you_ if I am found out," Guy said. "Now go, and don't get caught."  
  
The Night Watchmen cavalierly tossed his cloak over one shoulder, as if to say, "I won't," and followed Nottingham's newest outlaws into the alleyway.  



	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Nightwatchman makes life difficult for Guy.

In the days that followed, news of the Night Watchman’s heroics spread quickly through the villages of Nottinghamshire. Once, the peasants had only spoken of him in whispers late at night when their fires had burned down to embers. Now, his name was on their lips on market day and as they worked in the fields. One enterprising minstrel whose name no one ever could remember when asked even wrote a song commemorating the event.

The Sheriff was livid, and he demanded that the Night Watchman be run to ground. He offered a reward for the Night Watchman’s capture and sent messengers to read the announcement in all of the villages, but no one said a word. He demanded more tax money from the villages and promised to relent if the Night Watchman was apprehended, and still no one came forward. It was then that the song began to be sung in taverns and ale houses all over the shire. That, it seemed, was the final straw. The Sheriff levied a special tax on beer and ale so crippling it nearly drove the taverns out of business, and the people sang more quietly after that.

Through it all, Guy stood squarely in the path of the Sheriff’s anger. The peasants who had been rescued were, after all, from the manor that had been his, and the failure to catch the Night Watchman and the peasants before they disappeared inside the castle never to be seen again was his as well. Every time Vasey railed at him for letting the prisoners escape in the first place, every time he insulted Guy’s ability and his intelligence because he had not yet been able to find the outlaws or the Night Watchman, Guy kept his face blank and stoic and hoped that the Sheriff would never guess the truth about why he had failed. Sometimes, he wondered if it would not have been easier to tell the Night Watchman to expect no help from him and to let the boys from Locksley die. No amount of balm for his conscience was worth the abuse he had to endure, or the danger he had put himself in.

"You’ve gotten soft, Gisborne,” the Sheriff said to him one evening as they stood together on the wall overlooking the main castle gate. "That's your problem. Lounging about up at Locksley manor, sitting by the fire and knitting socks with that dried up shell of a woman… it’s enough to make any man lose his edge."

Guy considered his response carefully. His pride was hurt, and his first instinct was to respond with anger, but he knew his master was baiting him, and experience had taught him better than to disagree with Vasey outright. However, if he made no attempt to contradict the Sheriff's statement, he would only be confirming his own weakness.

"I think you will find I'm still sharp, My Lord," he said.

"We'll see." Vasey drummed his fingers restlessly on the stones of the parapet. "We will be visiting the villages, Gisborne, you and I. The Night Watchman is getting braver, getting bolder. Coming out from under his rock into the full light of day, making me look the fool. Making people forget who it is who holds the reins in this shire. A reminder, I believe is in order, and I intend to give them one."

"How?" Guy asked.

"It's simple, really. We ride into the village, I speak to the people about the loyalty they owe to _me_ , and we come down hard on anyone who even _thinks_ about speaking up, or even looking sullen or discontented." Vasey patted Guy companionably on the shoulder. "Or, shall I say, _you_ come down hard on them. I'm leaving matters of enforcement in your… capable hands."

They began their progress around the shire the next day, and in every village, they left men and women locked in the stocks or bound to the whipping post with guards left behind to make sure that they stayed there for the allotted time. Guy learned to mete out punishments quickly and harshly, or the Sheriff would do it for him, and whatever the Sheriff ordered would be far crueler than anything Guy would have thought necessary. Always, he felt Vasey's eyes on him as he made his decisions, as if he were being watched for signs of lenience or compassion. Perhaps, Guy thought, the Sheriff was correct. Perhaps he had grown soft. It was difficult for him to see men punished so severely for such slight offenses, and when he heard people murmur that the Sheriff's justice was no justice at all, he was more inclined to agree with them than to have them beaten for it. Still, the Sheriff was his way to power, and if this required him to steel himself to a little bit of cruelty, it was a sacrifice Guy had long ago decided he was willing to make.

Locksley was the hardest. It was the second village on the Sheriff's list, and Robin came out of the manor and stood to the side of the crowd during Vasey's speech. He stayed and watched, flinty-eyed, while Guy ordered two men who scowled when the Sheriff announced yet another tax to be whipped for impudence, and Robin made no move to share hospitality with them as they rode past the manor on their way out of the village.

#####

Marian found Guy in the stables in the afternoon after he had returned from Locksley. He was seeing to his own horse and tack, having sent the stable boys away with a scathing remark about their ability to properly care for such a valuable animal as his. He did not care that they had groomed and fed his horse every other day without giving him any reason for complaint.

He ran the brush over the charger's sleek black coat, and the horse whickered at him in contentment. At the sound of approaching footsteps, though, the horse's ears were suddenly alert, and he pawed impatiently at the ground. Guy tensed as well. He had thought he was alone, and he was not glad to have company. When he saw that it was Marian who was intruding on his solitude, half of him was glad to see her, and the other half wished to see her least of all.

"You've heard about what happened in Locksley, then," Guy said. "You don't need to tell me that you disapprove."

"I have heard," she said, her tone making it perfectly clear what she thought of Guy's actions that day, "but that is not why I'm here." She looked quickly over both shoulders to make sure that they were the only ones within earshot. "I need your help again."

Guy patted his horse's neck and hung the brush back in its place.

"Not here," he whispered. The Sheriff had eyes and ears everywhere, and it was entirely possible that one of his informants was listening at a knothole on the other side of the wall.

"Come with me, then," she said, inclining her head toward the door. "There is a guest in the castle I would like for you to meet, and… I have a proposal for both of you."

Guy offered her his arm, and together they walked across the courtyard and under the great stone arch that led inside. They walked slowly, so as not to arouse suspicion, and if Guy had not been too busy worrying about what danger Marian was planning to put both of them in now, he would have enjoyed having her at his side.

Marian had timed her secret meeting well. Because so many of the servants were busy preparing food or meticulously scrubbing the hall so that all was ready for dinner, they met very few people as they made their way up the stairs to a little-used chamber above the great hall. Twice, Marian knocked three times in rapid succession before carefully opening the door. There, in the ruddy light of the setting sun, Robin of Locksley sat in a high-backed chair with his legs stretched out before him. His serving man, a lanky fellow with a reddish beard, stood at Robin's side. The servant's hand went to the sword at his side the moment Guy stepped through the door.

"Treachery!" he hissed. "What is _he_ doing here?"

Seeing Marian enter the room as well and shut the door behind her, Robin put his hand up. His servant's hand stopped just short of pulling his sword from its scabbard.

"Peace, Much," Robin said. Then, addressing Marian, he added, "He asks a good question, though."

Marian rolled her eyes. "I told you I knew someone who could help us, didn't I? Guy… is that someone."

Robin smiled at her as if he thought she were joking.

"Don't look at me that way. I'm not playing around here, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't either," Marian said.

"You want me… to work with _him_?" Robin asked. His voice had an angry edge, now. "After what he did to _my_ people today?"

Guy scowled at him. Though he no longer had the luxury of being kind, those same people were as much his as they were Robin's. It was he who had made sure they were fed, he who had risked everything to help their sons escape the executioner, and yet he was now the one forced to publicly grind them under the Sheriff's boot heel. Guy felt as if a fist had closed around his heart, but he was so used to ignoring such feelings that it did not reach his face.

"Yes, I do," Marian insisted. Then, she rounded on Guy. "Tell him. Tell him it was not your choice. Because if I know you at all, I cannot think it was."

Guy almost stubbornly refused to speak. He did not like Robin, and he was the last person Guy would have chosen to see his weakness, but Marian seemed to be growing more frustrated with his silence with every moment that passed, and she had obviously taken great pains to get the three of them into a the same room unnoticed. The truth was the least he could give her.

"It was not my choice," he said finally, looking Robin in the eye and daring him to say otherwise.

"We always have a choice," Robin shot back. "And you didn't just sit by. You ordered the floggings! Men who had done nothing but look at the Sheriff in the wrong way" Robin shook his head in disgust.

"You think you understand?" Guy said. He tried to keep his voice quiet, but there was heat in his words. "You know nothing about me. You're angry that they were whipped?" he scoffed and shook his head. "The Sheriff would have had them killed, and he thinks me soft that I did not."  
  
For the first time since Guy had entered the room, Robin did not look angry. Instead, he looked confused, as if he had been presented with a riddle he could not quite answer.  
  
"You protect them…" Much said, sounding as if he didn't quite believe the words he was saying.

Robin did nothing to reprimand his servant for speaking out of turn, and Marian seemed to think nothing of it, so Guy forced himself to reply, "When I can."

"Guy will not tell you this," Marian said, seizing a moment of advantage, "but he was also the one who helped the Night Watchman and your peasants escape from the castle."

Guy looked at Marian in alarm. That secret had been his as well as hers, and he would not have trusted Locksley with it if he had been paid to. Also, he was mildly jealous that Locksley now knew of Marian's association with the Night Watchman, though from Robin's lack of reaction at the mention of the name, he had known for a while.

"You?" Robin asked. "That was… you? I'd wondered how they managed, but…"

"Can't believe it of me, can you?" Guy asked sardonically.

"Let's just say it strains the boundaries of my imagination."

"Enough, both of you!" Marian said. "We don't have much time."

"Ah, your proposal," Robin said, leaning forward in his chair. "I must admit, I am curious. Have a seat, Gisborne. Let's listen to what the lady has to say."

Guy ignored the mocking tone in Robin's voice and sat in another of the chairs that lined the wall.

"I will be brief," Marian said. "All of us think the Sheriff is unjust, and all of us wish to work against him, at the very least to better the lives of those who cannot protect themselves. If we work together, share what we know… we will be that much more able to do what we feel is right."

"You speak treason," Guy warned her. "If the Sheriff even begins to think that the three of us have allied against him…"

"No, I speak of compassion," Marian corrected him. "I'm not talking about starting a rebellion, I'm talking about making sure people don't starve without drawing too much of the Sheriff's attention to any one of us."

"And the Night Watchman?" Robin asked. "Where does he figure into all of this?"

Seeing that she had their interest, Marian smiled and began to outline her plan. "He is the key. He will take the risk, he will deliver food and supplies to those who need it most, just as he always has. But what he needs now is money and information. Robin, you have told me yourself that you would be willing to give, and Guy, you know where the Sheriff and his guards are going to be, and when. And so, while he is at one end of the Shire, puffed up with his own vanity, the Night Watchman will be at the other end of the Shire, delivering food bought with Robin's coin."

"Not much of a Night Watchman these days, is he?" Guy asked. "He'd best be careful not to get too bold, coming out in the daylight."

"He will be able to move more quickly when it's light, and if he knows that the Sheriff's soldiers are going to be elsewhere, what does he have to fear?" Marian said.

Robin of Locksley was deep in thought, and looked older than he ever had since Guy had met him.

"It's a good plan," Robin said at last. "I am willing if Gisborne is."

Guy, though, was not so easily satisfied. "And what is your part in this to be?" he asked Marian. "What risk does the Night Watchman ask you to take?" He did not know who the man was, but he was almost angry at him for putting Marian in such a dangerous position. Robin, too, seemed concerned about the question Guy had asked, and looked at her expectantly, waiting for an answer.

"Don't worry," she said to both of them. "My only part in this is speaking to both of you on his behalf. If you agree, I will carry what you tell me to him. I will _do_ nothing." She turned to Guy, the only one who had not yet given his consent. "This will not work without you, Guy," she told him. "Please."

He wondered if she knew what an effect that one word had on him, but he did not ask her. Instead, he said, "I'll do it. I can get you a list of the villages he'll visit in the next month, and when he'll be there."

"It's settled, then," Robin said, rising from his chair. "Much and I should be going back to Locksley before we're forced to stay for dinner. All of us should probably… avoid being seen together to ward off suspicion." The way Robin's eyes lingered on Marian told Guy that those words were meant to keep her from Guy's company.

"I'll keep that in mind," Guy said, favoring Robin with a devious half-smile. If Locksley was so worried as to want him to stay away from Marian, perhaps the betrothal was not as final as he had thought it was.  
Robin surprised him, then. Before unlatching the door, he stopped in front of Guy and offered him his hand.

"For the poor," Robin said simply.

"And Marian's treasonous compassion," Guy said, and the two of them clasped each other's forearms for a moment before Robin and his servant slipped out of the room and down the corridor toward the stairs.

#####

For a while, the plan worked perfectly. Each stop on the Sheriff's progress was accompanied by news of the Night Watchman appearing in another village with food and coins for the needy. Guy knew that Vasey was not a man to suffer insolence, and so even as he passed what he knew to Marian, sometimes with a bit of silver as well, he waited for the Sheriff to go mad with anger and order the villages razed to the ground or something equally drastic. But the Sheriff did nothing, and every day that passed, Guy grew more worried about Vasey's apparent lack of concern. Contrary to everything Guy thought he knew about his master, the Sheriff was blithely ignoring the Night Watchman as he thumbed his nose at the authorities. Vasey didn't mention it to Guy, didn't berate him for failing to catch the outlaw, and didn't seem to care that the voices that sang the Night Watchman's praises were louder then ever.  
  
Then, three weeks to the day after Guy had agreed to Marian's plan, it all became terribly clear.  
  
Guy was in the courtyard speaking to the men who would form the Sheriff's personal guard that day when the doors to the keep opened wide and Vasey stepped out into the sun, grinning widely.

"Get your men ready, Gisborne. We ride to Nettlestone within the hour," the Sheriff said, coming down the stairs with a spring in his step. He was in a worrisomely cheerful mood. The last time Guy had seen the Sheriff so happy, three people Vasey didn't care for had turned up dead under mysterious circumstances before the day was through

"I thought that we were visiting Clun today," Guy said, trying to sound only mildly interested in the change of plans.

"I changed my mind," Vasey said, "and so we'll go to Nettlestone instead."

Guy felt as if he'd just been dunked in a bucket of cold water. He had reminded Marian just the night before that they would be visiting Clun in the morning, and though she hadn't told him where the Night Watchman would be making his delivery, Nettlestone would have been an obvious choice. It was in the opposite direction from where the Sheriff was supposedly going to be, and it was one of the only villages that had not yet been visited by the Night Watchman. If it was a trap, it was a clever one, and Guy had unwittingly helped the Sheriff to spring it.

Briefly, Guy wondered if he could get a message to his co-conspirators, but there was no time. Robin was at Locksley, and Guy fervently hoped that Marian was safe at Knighton Hall doing nothing, just as she had promised. Besides, even if either of them had been in the castle, Guy had too many eyes on him to attempt a private conversation. There was nothing he could do but act as if all was well, ready the thirty soldiers in gold and black that had begun to assemble in the courtyard, and ride out of Nottingham at Vasey's side.

When they were on the road, Guy pulled his horse up next to Vasey's open carriage.

"You hope to catch the Night Watchman today," Guy said, feigning admiration of the Sheriff's cleverness.

"Very good, Gisborne," the Sheriff said. "Glad to see you've caught up. Have your men ring the village when we arrive, and make sure that you're ready when he appears. I want him caught, I want him unmasked, and I want him hanged. There are some perfect trees in Nettlestone, if I recall." He grinned again and made a motion with his arm that mimicked a body swinging at the end of a rope. Guy chuckled along with him and kicked his horse into a trot, making for the head of the column and shouting orders at his men. Perhaps if the Night Watchman heard them coming, Guy reasoned, he would be able to make a run for it without being seen.

Nettlestone was quiet as they approached it, but people came out of their houses and stopped their work in the fields to see what the commotion was about as the Sheriff and his retinue passed by. The guards quickly began to gather the people into the square. The peasants put down their tools reluctantly, not wanting to lose an hour of daylight at the height of the summer harvest. However, they feared the steel in the soldiers' hands more than they feared the specter of hunger, and so they grudgingly complied. When everyone in Nettlestone was standing in the square, the soldiers formed a ring around the perimeter of the village, and the Sheriff began to speak. Guy stood beside Vasey as he talked, but he paid no attention to the Sheriff's words. They were full of falsehoods anyway.

As the Sheriff was floridly assuring the people that it was he who had their best interests at heart, and that the Night Watchman was nothing more than a thief who flaunted the laws of the land, a cry came up from the far side of the village.

"He's here!" one of the soldiers shouted.

Everyone in the square looked in the direction of the soldier's voice, and there, running across the rooftop of one of the outlying houses in the village, was a familiar figure in a mask and a brown cloak. Guy fought down a flash of irritation. Couldn't the man have kept from being seen? Now, Guy had no choice but to lead the chase.

"He's ours," the Sheriff said, all traces of generosity and good will gone from his voice.

"Bring him back to me, Gisborne."

The Night Watchman had jumped from the roof and begun sprinting across an open field toward the edge of Sherwood Forest by the time Guy and his men could mount and give chase. The other soldiers were spurring their horses on as fast as they could run, and Guy could do nothing less. Still, with an extraordinary burst of speed, the Night Watchman plunged headlong into the forest less than twenty yards ahead of the first riders. Once they were among the trees, though, they had to reign in their mounts. Sherwood was thick and treacherous, and a horse could easily miss its footing and break a leg or throw a rider. Still, Guy could see the Night Watchman moving swiftly to the east, and he knew that his men could as well, and so he ordered them forward. They rode more carefully now, but the Night Watchman was tiring, and they were able to keep within sight of him.

One soldier who had brought a longbow with him reached for an arrow and began to draw back his bow string.

"No!" Guy shouted. "Unless you know you won't kill him. The Sheriff wants to see him die."

Unwilling to be the one who denied the Sheriff the pleasure of an enemy's demise, the soldier put down his bow.  
The Night Watchman led them across a creek and along the edge of a steep ravine. Guy heard the scream of an injured horse as one of his soldiers mounts' lost its footing on the rocky ground. And then, the Night Watchman was gone. One moment he was running so close to the precipice Guy thought it a wonder he did not fall, and the next he was nowhere to be seen. Guy dismounted and ran to the edge of the cliff where the Night Watchman had last been. The drop, he saw, was not so steep there, less than twelve feet to a soft landing in soft undergrowth. Still, the horses would not make the jump, and the trees were thicker at the bottom. So thick that even if they had found a way down, they would have had to leave their horses and their armor to keep up the chase.

Guy watched the cloaked figure making his way through the close, dense forest until he was out of sight, and then turned back to see what could be done about the lame horse. He swore to himself that if his men lost a trained war horse on the Night Watchman's account, the man wouldn't be getting any more of his silver for a long while, hungry peasants or no.

#####

"Thirty of you. There were thirty men on horseback. Chasing one. Lone. Man. On. Foot." The Sheriff punctuated each word by jabbing a finger into Guy's chest.  
  
"We lost our advantage when he ran into the forest," Guy explained. "And he seemed to know the land well enough to go where we could not follow."  
  
"Yes…" the Sheriff said, suddenly thoughtful. "He knew the land. That tells me something. What does it tell you, Gisborne? Hmm?"  
  
Guy spoke carefully. Even though he didn't know the truth, he didn't want to come to close to it in ignorance. "He could be an outlaw. There are bands of them that have been in the forest for years, long enough to know it as well as the Night Watchman did."  
  
"But then, he is in the forest and out of our reach," the Sheriff said. "And outlaws don’t wear masks. They're already dead men in the eyes of the law. No, this man has something to hide. He doesn't want to be recognized." He peered up at Guy, expecting another idea to be forthcoming.  
  
"He could be a peasant or a craftsman whose trade took him into the forest," Guy suggested.  
  
"Good… very good. I want names. I want to know the charcoal burners and the wood cutters and the foresters who have… an intimate knowledge of Sherwood. Who else?"  
  
"A man of noble birth," Guy said. He knew Vasey was already thinking it. "It would explain where he gets the money for the food he hands out. We would have noticed such a large shortage were he stealing it."  
  
The Sheriff sat down in the chair at the table that held his correspondence and his seal. "Yes. More names for your list. I want to know the malcontents, the bleeding hearts, the friends of the poor. The Night Watchman does not work alone, and one of them _must_ know him."  
  
"Yes, My Lord," Guy said.

The Sheriff waved his hand in dismissal, and when Guy's back was already to him, the Sheriff said, "I'll help you get started. Put Robin of Locksley's name at the very top."

"He's been back for only a few months, and the Night Watchman was first seen in Nottingham years ago."

"I know that," Vasey said irritably. "Follow him anyway, and watch his movements. Eventually, the Night Watchman may come to Locksley, if he hasn't already, and when he does, we'll be rid of him, _and_ of young master Robin. Locksley will be yours for good, and you can do what you'd like with Locksley's tiresome crone of a mother."

"I look forward to it," Guy said, smirking. He kept the expression on his face until he was well out of the Sheriff's sight. When he finally thought it safe, he leaned against the wall and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and his forefinger. He was not made for secrecy and deceptions, and he longed for the cleanliness of a sword in his hand and an enemy before him.

#####

Neither Robin nor Marian came to Nottingham for two days after the events in Nettlestone, and when Marian did come, she regarded Guy with a stony expression from across the marketplace. He tried to catch her eye, to get her to come and speak to him, but she pointedly ignored him. Finally, he made his way through the bustle of merchants and townsfolk to the cloth dyer's stall where Marian was inspecting a length of deep green wool.

"Lady Marian," Guy said, greeting her with a respectful nod.

"Sir Guy," Marian said stiffly. "What use have you for cloth today?"

Her biting tone stung more than he cared to admit, and he made no attempt to reign in the bewilderment that crossed his face. "None, but I had hoped to speak to you," he said. He looked over at the cloth dyer, who was helping another of his customers. "Unless you think that we will be overheard."

"Be quick," she said, and she pretended to look through a stack of fabric near the back of the stall.

"I have important news to share, and yet you act like I am offensive to you," he said. "I've done nothing to deserve this."

Marian turned to face him with one quick, fierce movement. "The Sheriff was not supposed to be in Nettlestone," she said. "And, from all accounts, you nearly ran the Night Watchman down before he gave you the slip."

Guy looked away. "I didn't catch him, did I?" he asked.

"Not for lack of trying, from what I heard," she said. She seemed terribly offended on the Night Watchman's behalf, and Guy wondered if her protectiveness was proof that she felt more for the Night Watchman than admiration.

"I had to _look_ like I was trying, and I wouldn't have had to chase him if he'd gone away quietly when he saw we were there instead of making a spectacle of himself on the roof tops," Guy said.

"He wouldn't have needed to hide if the Sheriff had been in Clun where he was supposed to be." Marian had both hands on her hips now, and she was eyeing Guy as one would an errant child.

"That's why I needed to speak to you. Part of it, at least. The Sheriff changed his mind. He had us ride to Nettlestone at the last moment, and there was no time to tell anyone."

Marian took her hands from her hips. "Oh," she said, suddenly absorbed in the pattern woven into one of the bolts of cloth.

"You thought I might have told you the wrong village on purpose," Guy growled. He knew it was the truth when she did not immediately deny it, and he let anger and wounded pride drown out the sharp pain of knowing that she did not trust him.

"I did not know what to think," Marian said at last.

"But you believe me now?" he demanded.

"Yes." She sounded like she meant it, and Guy chose to take her at her word. It was easier than the alternative.

"Good," he said gruffly. "Since we know we're not lying to each other now, you need to tell Locksley to be careful. The Sheriff thinks he knows the Night Watchman's identity, and I'm to report on his movements. The first of my informants should be in Locksley by tonight."

"I'll tell him. Thank you."

Guy nodded at her without meeting her eyes, and he had already turned to go when Marian caught his arm. "Guy… I thought the worst of you, and I'm sorry," she said. "It is hard to know who to trust, and I've seen the Sheriff's promises of power corrupt men I've known since I was a girl."

"If you have no faith in my better nature, at least believe that I am your friend, and I will not betray you, or the men who help you," he said, and he dared to take her other hand in his for a moment.

"I will," Marian said, and she squeezed his hand before calling to the merchant to come and help her with her purchase. When Guy left her, she was watching carefully as the man cut long swaths of green and reddish brown cloth from the bolts that he had brought to market.  



	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guy visits Treeton Mine and makes a decision that changes everything.

Despite the open windows that looked out over fields full of early autumn grain, the chamber where the council of nobles met was stifling. The most powerful men in the shire sat in a semi-circle around the Sheriff's throne with sweat trickling down their necks and faces, sipping tepid wine that had been brought up from the cellar an hour before.

"And so, if there are no more matters of business to put before the council today…" the Sheriff was saying as many of the nobles began to shift in their seats, ready to rise once the meeting was dismissed.

"I have business, My Lord," Marian said from her place behind her father's chair. Several of the other men groaned audibly.

"Ah, Lady Marian. What a surprise," Vasey said, casting a bored, commiserating glance at the man who sat closest to him. "What is it this time?"

"I have a proposal to benefit the workers at Treeton Mine," she said, coming forward and placing a piece of parchment on the table in front of the Sheriff. He picked it up and glanced at it for the space of a few heartbeats before tossing it to the side.

"The workers at the mine are Saracen slaves," the Sheriff reminded her. "As they have been since the mine's English workers refused to do a day's honest work. So, as they are foreigners and not Englishmen, their welfare should not concern this council."

Though the Sheriff seemed to be indicating that the matter was closed, Marian pressed her point. "I believe it should, My Lord," she said. "If they are half dead of starvation and exhaustion, they cannot be productive workers. If you were to add a tax to the price of the ore that they bring to the surface and put it toward better food and…" Marian broke off abruptly when she Sheriff started to laugh loudly.

"A tax," he said, gesturing to Marian as if he were presenting her to the assembled company. "This is new. Lady Marian here, of all people, is suggesting that we put a tax on our iron ore. But what she does not know is that if we do that, we will not longer be able to sell it to our neighbors at a low price, and they will look elsewhere for their iron. And then, the mine will not run at all, and her Saracen friends will be even hungrier than they are now."

"A very small increase in the price would not hurt the mine," Marian said. "Slaves or not, the workers at Treeton labor for long hours with little food, and I have heard that many of them arrived weakened from their journey. Surely, it is our responsibility to see that they are treated as _men_ and not as animals." She glanced around the room, searching for support, and found none. Guy watched her trying to catch Robin's eye for a long while, silently imploring him to speak in her defense, but Locksley simply stared at a point just above her head and said nothing.

"Very well," the Sheriff said, though he was clearly humoring her. "Any in favor of taxing our iron ore to feed the very heathens that King Richard battles in the Holy Land?" The room was still as death, as if the entire council had forgotten to breathe for fear that their movement might be mistaken for agreement. Secure in his success, he waved his hands toward the door. "The motion is defeated, and the meeting is adjourned."

As the members of the council made their way to the door, Marian stood still in the center of the circle, her cheeks red with embarrassment. The Sheriff smiled patronizingly at her. "Better luck next time," he said. Because he knew Vasey could not see him, Guy shrugged sympathetically at her. He did not understand why Marian insisted on presenting proposals she knew would fail, but he did not like to see her looking so downcast.

It seemed, though, that she did not need Guy's sympathy. With the moment of her humiliation having passed, she smiled coolly. "Thank you, My Lord," she said, and joined her father in the line of nobles filing out into the hall.

#####

As was the custom on days when the Sheriff's council met, a feast was held in the Great Hall that night. Guy kept his distance from Marian and from Locksley, though he envied the way they spoke together freely at the other end of the table. In the two months since Guy had been reporting on Robin's movements to the Sheriff, Robin had done nothing that could even begin to be described as suspicious. He met with no one in secret, he entertained his guests in the full view of the servants and the village, and he seemed to be the most unassuming of men. In another month, Guy was planning to suggest that his informants might be more useful elsewhere. If he was very lucky, the Sheriff would agree.  
  
When the feast was drawing to a close, Guy excused himself from the hall. He was on his way to his chambers when he heard two voices whispering in one of the side passages. He stopped to listen more closely, and he soon recognized both speakers—Marian and Locksley, and neither of them happy, from the sound of things. Guy inched closer and risked a quick glance around the corner. Robin leaned against the wall, arms folded and a surly expression on his face. Marian stood with her back to Guy, and even though he couldn't see her face, irritation radiated from her like heat from a flame.  
  
"I wasn't asking for your whole-hearted support, but you could have at least said something," Marian was saying.  
  
Robin gave a melancholy sigh and shook his head. "You know I wanted to," he said.  
  
"Then why _didn't_ you?" Marian asked. "What happened to 'working together to make small changes'?" From the way she said the phrase, Guy guessed that the two of them had spoken of it before.  
  
"Even if I did support you in council, the other nobles never would have agreed. It was doomed to fail from the start," Robin said. "And again, I would be remembered as the one man who had defied the Sheriff's wishes."  
  
"Sometimes all it takes is one man," Marian countered. "Others might have followed your example."  
  
"I would want to be sure of their support before I stuck my neck out publicly," Robin said.  
  
Marian softened then, and reached out to touch Robin's face.  
  
"What has happened to you, Robin?" she asked. "When you first came home, it was I who advised caution, and you who were ready to fight the Sheriff head-on."  
  
"And you are angry that I have taken your advice to heart?" Robin asked, raising an eyebrow at her.  
  
"Concerned that you have taken it too well. It's not like you."  
  
For a long time, Robin was quiet. Then, he uncrossed his arms and let them hang at his sides. "The Sheriff threatened my mother," he said. "After the last time I spoke up against him in council, he found me alone when the meeting was done, and he asked about my mother's health. He said it would be a shame if something were to happen to her. A sudden chill, an inconvenient bit of bad meat…" Robin spread his hands helplessly. "And I know he has the power to do it. If anything were to happen to her… she's my _mother_ , Marian…"  
  
Robin's voice was choked with worry and frustration, and Guy was almost sorry that he was eavesdropping on such a private moment. At the same time, a tight, hard knot of worry began to form in his chest. Lady Elaine may not have been his mother, but she was a good woman, a kind woman, and a friend. Guy had known that the Sheriff did not like her, but he had never dreamed that Vasey would go so far as to have her killed just to keep her son in line. Anger joined the worry pulsing beside his heart.  
  
Marian reached out and took Robin in her arms, threading her fingers through his hair.  
  
"I'm so sorry," she said. Her voice was muffled against his shoulder. "Does your mother know?"  
  
"She does. She… advises me to follow my conscience and not to worry about her," Robin said. "But I can't do that. I won't. I know I left her to go on Crusade, I know I haven't been the best of sons, but I _will not_ be responsible for…"  
  
"I know," Marian said, unwinding her arms from around his neck. "We will find other ways to fight. Ways that don't put her in danger."  
  
"But that still leaves your Saracen workers at the mine hungry and mistreated, and our hands are tied." Robin said glumly.  
  
"It is one of many injustices we can do nothing about. Not yet. But we must hope and plan, and do what good we can in the mean time."  
  
Robin smiled at her optimism and offered her his arm. She took it, and they both turned their backs to Guy and walked further down the passage. Guy waited until long after both of their footsteps had faded into nothing before continuing to his chambers for a night of fitful sleep.

#####

Though the Sheriff loved it for the wealth it brought him, Guy had always thought Treeton Mine to be a desolate place. It sat in a shallow dip in the land bordered by Sherwood on one side and a patchwork of fields on the other. The single road that led to the mine was deeply rutted by the wagons that carried the iron ore to the foundry, and the mine itself was a hot, dry expanse of brown grass and dirt, punctuated by mounds of ore and square wooden entrances that led down into the shafts.  
  
The day after the council meeting, the Sheriff had ordered Guy to ride with him out to the mine to survey the progress that had been made in the weeks since the Saracens had arrived.  
  
"You see, Gisborne," the Sheriff said with satisfaction, "they are less trouble than Englishmen, and just as productive. No whining about their rights, their children, their pay. And if they _do_ complain…" He put a hand to his ear and made a confused expression. "What is that? I don't understand… because I don't speak Turk." He let out a short, cruel laugh. "They seem to understand the lash well enough, though." He gestured at the mine's foreman, a brutish man with a thick neck and a coiled whip hanging from his belt.  
  
"Most men do," Guy agreed.  
  
Under the foreman's watchful eye, the workers brought up baskets full of ore, and one group of men that had begun work on a new shaft chanted with the rise and fall of their picks. The Sheriff majestically waved his hands in time with the chant, solemn as a cantor directing the mass.  
  
"It's a sweet sound, isn't it? The sound of money being made?" the Sheriff asked. "And when one of them drops dead, I can buy another, thanks to Good King Richard's wars."  
  
A sudden swell of shouting in English and in the Saracens' foreign tongue drowned out Guy's grunt of agreement. Workers whose heads had been bent to their tasks looked up to see what was happening before guards ordered them back to their work, brandishing their spears to make their point. Still, many of the slaves still watched as Guy and the Sheriff rode over to the source of the noise.  
  
Two guards held a single Saracen boy between them. He was covered in dust, and the white bit of cloth that he had wrapped around his head was in tatters. Even though he was shorter by a head than both of the men who held him, they struggled to keep him from breaking free. The foreman ran to meet Guy and the Sheriff, and he forced the boy's chin up with his fist.  
  
"This one again?" the foreman asked. Apologetically, he turned to Vasey. "Sorry, My Lord… This one's tried to escape three times, now. I try to put the fear of the lash into them, but some of them are just trouble." He spat out the last word vehemently, and glared at the Saracen boy, who had stopped struggling and met the foreman's eyes with an equal amount of fire. The Sheriff dismounted and motioned for Guy to do the same.  
  
Vasey studied the boy closely for a while, and then nodded decisively.  
  
"Kill him, Gisborne."  
  
The boy's eyes widened in fear, and when he turned his head to look at the man who had just been ordered to end his life, Guy saw a long, freshly healed scar that ran along his jaw line from his right ear to his chin.  
  
"Perhaps a flogging, My Lord," Guy suggested. He did not know how Marian did it, but she listened well, and she seemed to know everything that went on at the mine. She would not forgive him easily if he killed one of the Sheriff's slaves. He prayed that he could convince the Sheriff to settle for a lesser punishment, for there was little that he could do if the Sheriff insisted.  
  
"No, no. Not this time. This," he jabbed a finger at the boy's face, "is an excess of spirit. You can see that he's been punished before, trying to escape." He tapped the boy's new scar. "And still he tries again. No, this one is more trouble than he's worth."  
  
Slowly, Guy drew his sword, the steel hissing against the scabbard as he pulled it free.

The two guards who held the boy let go of his arms and pushed him forward, offering Guy an easy target. The boy did not beg, and he did not flinch when Guy raised his arm to strike. Instead, he looked over Guy's shoulder at the other slaves and shouted a single phrase in Arabic. Guy had spent enough time in the Holy Land to make out the words "I die proud." Then, the boy stared up at Guy with large, dark eyes, and though he was afraid, Guy recognized a defiance he had seen before. It was the smoldering anger he had seen in Will Scarlett's eyes while he had stood on the gallows. It was the refusal to back down in the face of overwhelming odds that he saw every time Marian tried and failed to win the nobles to her causes. It was the strength in his father's eyes as he stood in his own grave having the leper's mass read over him. And now, he saw it in a face that looked up at him and dared him to strike, promising that though Guy might be able to kill his body, the boy's spirit would not waver.  
  
"Gisborne! Get on with it!" the Sheriff shouted. "My patience is wearing thin."  
  
The boy tensed himself for the blow, and Guy lowered his sword.  
  
"No."  
  
Though Guy had his back to the Sheriff, he could feel his ire. "What did you just say?" he demanded.  
  
"No, My Lord," Guy repeated, more loudly this time, though every scrap of reason that he possessed screamed for him to keep quiet and beg forgiveness. Instead, he turned to face the Sheriff, putting his naked blade between Vasey and the boy. "I will not," Guy added, knowing that the words, once spoken, could not be taken back.  
  
The Sheriff's face contorted with barely controlled fury. "Then I'll have someone do it for you."  
  
Vasey nodded at one of the guards who had caught the boy, and the soldier had his sword out and cutting through the air in an instant. Instinctively, Guy blocked the blow, and as their swords rang against each other, he knew that everything had changed.  
  
Guy looked down at the boy and said, "Run." Shocked though the boy was, he seemed to understand the simple command and took off across the open ground.  
  
For a moment, no one moved. The soldier, used to following Guy's orders and not knowing what to do now that his former commander was an enemy, simply stared wide-eyed at him through their crossed blades.  
  
" _That_ , my friend, was a mistake," Vasey said in a dangerously soft voice. Then, he bellowed, "Guards! Arrest Gisborne! And catch that boy!"  
  
Belatedly, the soldiers lurched into action, but Guy was ahead of them. He pushed back hard against the soldier who had tried to kill the boy, sending him stumbling backwards into three of his fellow guards who had begun to cautiously advance. The other man who had been holding onto the boy's arms made a half-hearted attempt at an attack, but Guy parried it easily and slashed the guard across the ribs. A painful cut, but not deadly.  
  
More guards were coming from all over the mine with each moment that passed, and the men who were pursuing the boy as he ran for Sherwood were making steady progress. Guy knew that if they caught him, he would be killed, and nothing Guy had done there that day would mean anything at all. And so, he rebalanced his sword in his hand, seeking the deep calm that came upon him just before a fight, judged the distance between himself, his horse and the Sheriff's men, and took off at a sprint.  
  
It seemed that most of the guards who were just arriving had not heard the Sheriff's orders, or if they had, they had not believed their ears, because none of them tried to stop him. He had tied his horse's reins loosely around a post, and they came free easily in his hands. He vaulted himself into the saddle and kicked his horse into a gallop, nearly running over several astonished soldiers. By the time Guy reached the edge of the mine, it was in an uproar, but the Sheriff had also managed to get his men organized for the pursuit. He could hear the pounding of hooves and the clank of chain mail behind him.  
  
Guy urged his horse on faster now, past the guards who were chasing the boy on foot. He shouted at the boy, who turned and looked at him with utter surprise for the second time that day. Seeming to understand what Guy had planned, the boy stopped running and faced the oncoming rider and held out a hand. As Guy passed, he slowed only enough to pull the boy up behind him without wrenching his shoulder, and once he felt the boy's arms close around his waist, he kicked his horse into a gallop again, and they made for Sherwood Forest.  
  
The line of trees was close, now, and Guy knew that if they could reach them, they could use the wood to hide themselves. He was no Night Watchman, but he knew the forest well enough to lose a few scattered soldiers who spent most of their days in Nottingham castle.  
  
The boy shouted something in his ear that Guy could not hear, and later he realized it must have been a warning, for just before they rode past the first trees, a volley of arrows from the Sheriff's archers hissed through the air around them, and one of them found its mark in Guy's left thigh. He had been wounded before, but still, the searing pain almost blinded him, and he never did understand how he managed to stay in the saddle as they plunged deeper into Sherwood Forest.  



	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guy and Djaq make a bargain.

They rode for the better part of an hour before Guy decided it was safe to stop. They passed through thick stands of trees and over streams and patches of bare rock to throw their pursuers off their trail. Though the Sheriff's soldiers followed them at first, they soon fell behind, and the lazy afternoon quiet of the forest closed in around Guy and the Saracen boy.  
  
They stopped for water where a stream ran into a pool ringed by thin white birch trees. Before Guy could attempt to dismount on his own, the boy was off the horse and motioning for Guy to stop.  
  
"Be careful. Do not put your weight on it. You will only make it bleed more," the boy said, helping Guy to slide from the saddle and onto the ground. Guy had to stoop so that the boy could help to shoulder his weight.  
  
"You speak English," Guy said, grimacing as the pain in his leg worsened. It had been barely manageable while he was on horseback.  
  
"And you are perceptive. Sit down here." He guided Guy to a fallen log that lay parallel to the banks of the pool. "Careful! Don't knock the arrow!" he warned as he eased Guy down. It was good to sit again, but Guy still felt the muscles of his leg throbbing around the shaft that had gone completely through his thigh. The point of the arrow protruded from the front of his leg, and its fletching was still ten inches behind him, so it was hard for him to sit without letting the arrow brush the ground.  
  
"You are lucky," the boy said. He had removed his head covering, and for the first time Guy could see how very young he was. Not even old enough to have hair on his face. He was tearing strips off of it and dunking them into the rushing water at the mouth of the stream. "It went through clean, and I do not think it hit the bone."  
  
"Still needs to come out," Guy said through gritted teeth, gripping the arrow just below the head. He readied himself for the pain that would surely come when he pulled it the rest of the way through his leg.  
  
"Stop!" the boy said. "Please. Let me do it. If I am right, and I have good reason to think I am, that arrow missed one of your arteries by this much." He held his thumb and his forefinger an inch from each other. "If you are not careful, you will tear it, and I do not have the tools to stop the bleeding."  
  
Guy unclenched his fist from around the shaft and nodded.  
  
"What's your name?" Guy asked as the boy tied the thickest of the cloth strips tightly around his leg above the wound.  
  
"Djaq," the boy said. "And I know who you are, Guy of Gisborne." He inspected the knot he had tied. "I have seen you at the mine before."  
  
There was no threat in the boy's voice, but Guy was suddenly aware that his life was in the hands of one who had every reason to hate him, and he did not know if saving Djaq would absolve him of his past sins. Still, he had no other choice, and the boy seemed to be capable enough.  
  
"Help me hold the arrow steady," Djaq instructed him, and he placed Guy's hands just at the entry wounds on both sides of his leg. "I need to break off the end with the fletching. I don't want bits of feather getting caught inside when I pull it out."  
  
Guy did as he was told, and after studying the arrow for a moment, Djaq snapped off the last four inches with one quick motion. If it hadn't hurt so badly, Guy would have been impressed. Not many men could snap an arrow from an English longbow so easily.  
  
"I am almost ready," Djaq said. "Give me a knife."  
  
Guy handed him one of the small curved blades he kept hidden on his person. Djaq studied it for a moment, and then, apparently having decided it would serve his purposes, he knelt at Guy's side and began to carefully whittle away the splinters left by the break. After a while, he inspected his handy work.  
  
"That will have to do. I have no hot water, no pot to boil it in, no needle, no thread…" He sighed in frustration. "Are you ready?" Guy nodded. "That is good," Djaq said, and handed Guy a fat length of fallen wood he had washed in the stream. "You will want to bite down on this because… this will hurt."  
  
No sooner had Guy placed the wood between his teeth than Djaq pulled the arrow out, straight and fast. The Saracen boy had not lied. Guy felt a blazing flash of pain, and the last thing he saw before the blackness took him was Djaq, kneeling next to him with the arrow in his hand and a smile of satisfaction on his face.

#####

It was dark when Guy woke. He lay on a pile of leaves covered with the blanket that had been beneath his saddle, and his leg still hurt so badly he doubted he could stand on it, but it was tightly bandaged and did not seem to be bleeding any longer. It seemed that Djaq had removed his breeches so that he could clean the wound, for they were folded up beneath his head as a makeshift pillow. A few feet away, Djaq had a fire going, and two fish were roasting on spits above the flames.  
  
"You are awake. That's good," Djaq said. He pulled one of the spits from the fire and brought it over to Guy, who was trying to sit up. "Don't try to move too much. Not yet." He handed Guy the roasted fish. "Here. Eat. These are very good."  
  
Though the skin was still on and there was no sauce, the fish was indeed good, and Guy was left with nothing but the head and some thin, translucent bones before he knew what had happened.  
  
"I will find more food for us tomorrow," Djaq said. "There are many plants in this forest with roots and leaves that are good to eat."  
  
"You've been in Sherwood before?" Guy asked.  
  
"I escaped once before, and I was free for four days before being caught again," Djaq said.  
  
"Then… how were you brought back to the mine? Did they pursue you into the forest?" Guy asked, confused. If the Sheriff's men were so persistent when one of the slaves escaped, Guy and Djaq had both stayed in one place too long already.  
  
Djaq swallowed a mouthful of fish. "No," he said, "I was caught when I went back to free the others."  
  
"You did _what_?" Guy asked incredulously. The boy must have been mad. No man in his right mind would have thought that one renegade slave stood any chance of success against all of the Sheriff's guards. But then again, no man in his right mind would have looked kindly on Guy's turning outlaw for the sake of one foreign boy who should have been none of his concern.  
  
"I went back to try to free them. I could not escape on my own and leave my countrymen enslaved," Djaq said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. He went back to the fire and added a few more dry sticks.  
  
"Most men would not see it that way. Most men would have taken their freedom and run," Guy said.  
  
"Then I am not like most men," Djaq said. "And neither are you. I have not had the chance to say it yet, so… thank you. You saved my life when you had no reason to."  
  
It was the first time that either of them had spoken of what Guy had done for Djaq since it happened, and Guy did not know what to say. He did not want the boy to be grateful because he had the suspicion that, given the choice, he might go back and undo what he had done. Djaq, however, did not seem to notice Guy's reticence.  
  
"Why did you save me, Gisborne?" he asked.  
  
Guy was not sure he knew the answer to that question himself, but he tried to give one anyway. "I have a friend who… has a great deal of concern for the less fortunate. The things that friend has told me weighed too heavily on my conscience for me to kill you, and after I had defied the Sheriff, it would have been for nothing if I had let you die."  
  
"Then I am grateful to your friend as well. Tell me, though, is your friend a woman?" Djaq asked.  
  
Guy bristled at the question. He didn't want to think too much on Marian. He feared that he would never see her again, and the loss was still too new.  
  
"She is," he said curtly.  
  
"I thought so," Djaq replied, smiling.  
  
"Why?" Guy demanded, trying to prop himself up higher against the log behind him. He knew he didn't make a very menacing figure, but he still did not like being laughed at.  
  
"The look on your face when you talked about her," Djaq said. Again, there was a light, teasing tone in his voice that Guy did not like at all.  
  
"She's a woman I won't see again because of what I did for you," Guy snapped. That seemed to quiet the boy, and he rested his elbows on his knees and stared into the dying fire for a while.  
  
"Forgive me. I spoke without thinking," Djaq said at last.  
  
"It's done," Guy told him. That seemed to satisfy the boy, and he stretched out on a pile of leaves that he had gathered together.  
  
"You know, I believe that this forest is a much better host than your Sheriff," Djaq said. "Tonight, I ate fresh food, and this…" he ran a few leaves through his fingers, "is a much finer bed than the one provided to me at the mine." He drew in a deep breath. "Smells better, too."

"We are lucky that it is not yet winter," Guy said. "It won't be so easy to spend the nights in the open then."

"Perhaps we will find better shelter by the time autumn is over," Djaq said tentatively, as if unsure of how long they would continue to follow the same path.

"Perhaps," Guy agreed without thinking. He did not like thinking of the cold season to come, or of the long, hard days that stretched before him. He was an outlaw now, and he could not show his face in Nottingham or any other place where he had been known. He had no friends in the villages, and the people who had lived under his rule in Locksley were loyal to Robin now, who they loved more than they had ever cared for him. Guy would find no comfort there, especially after his former master had worked so diligently to make Guy feared and hated. Now, with the Sheriff surely clamoring for his blood, his only hope of survival was to disappear into the vast expanse of Sherwood.

#####

Djaq would not let Guy put weight on his wounded leg the next day, or the day after that. At first, Guy bridled at the humiliation of having to rely on his young companion so heavily, but Djaq had sharp eyes and even sharper ears, and Guy could not so much as stir from his bed but Djaq was there, making sure that he did not try to stand on his own.  
On the day that Guy did walk again, Djaq pronounced his removal of the arrow a success and promised Guy that in time, the limp would go away and the wound would be nothing but a memory. Though Guy was grateful to the boy and glad for his company, an awkward silence hung around the two of them as Guy grew stronger.

"I will try again, you know," Djaq said one night as they ate their evening meal of fish and wild berries. He and Guy had tried to set a snare for rabbits, but their efforts had been unsuccessful. Fish, they had both decided, were less trouble to catch.

"To free the others? You'll just get caught," Guy said derisively.

"Perhaps not. Last time, I was alone. This time, I have help."

Djaq sounded so sure of himself that Guy couldn't stop himself from laughing. "Me?" Guy asked. Djaq's serious expression did not change. "You do mean me…" Guy shook his head emphatically. "No. I'd be a fool to go back there."

"I saved your life," Djaq reminded him. "Is this how Englishmen repay their debts?"

"I saved yours first," Guy countered, "so the debt was yours, not mine. Now we're even."

Djaq quickly switched tactics. "Then do it for my countrymen. They are alone, hungry, and friendless, and they want nothing more than to go home. Surely you understand now what it is they feel."

Guy did understand. He understood all too well. Sometimes, in the moments just before he woke, he thought himself back in Nottingham, surrounded by grey stone and the finery of his room in the east tower. Other mornings, he thought he could just catch the scent of freshly baked bread wafting in from Locksley's kitchens.

Djaq must have seen that he was getting somewhere, for he continued, "One of the men, Zaid, has two daughters he has not met, twin girls who were born while he was at war. He only knows because his father wrote to him that they had been delivered safely. Then there is Naji. He is his mother's only son, and he worries that the sweetheart he left at home will not wait for him much longer. And Kharim, he is…"

"Enough," Guy said before Djaq could tell him another pitiful story. "Even if I did agree to help you, two people can't do any more than one."

"Then we should find more men," Djaq said, as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

"And how would we do that?" Guy asked, mostly to indulge his curiosity.  
Djaq looked back over his shoulder and pointed. "There is a group of outlaws making camp two miles upstream," he said. "We could ask them."

Guy was suddenly painfully alert. Some of the men had been driven to Sherwood forest by necessity, others, by greed. It was not uncommon for those who passed through Sherwood to be waylaid and mistreated, and if the band of outlaws Djaq had found did not take kindly to newcomers in the forest, things might go badly for them. Seeing the wary look on Guy's face, Djaq added, "They do not know that we are here. I may have scouted to the boundaries of the camp while you slept, but I did not get too close."

"How many are there?" Guy asked.

"Perhaps twenty," he said. "And after watching them for a long time, I do not think that they are violent men. They seemed more concerned with finding food than robbing travelers."

Twenty was a good number, Guy had to admit. And the outlaws would have knives, or swords, or clubs, or bows, and living in the forest would have taught them to use their weapons well. And if they had the advantage of surprise… Guy shook his head. He could not believe that he was considering another ill-fated rescue.

"And what makes you think that these hungry men will listen to you?" Guy asked.

"I know they will not," he said. "But they might listen to _you_."

Again, Guy had to laugh at the absolute certainty in Djaq's voice.

"They won't," Guy assured him. "Those I didn't personally force to turn outlaw at least know my face. They'd sooner follow the devil himself."

"Then we will hide your face. I would speak to them myself, but I cannot hide my voice," Djaq said.

"They will not help us out of the goodness of their hearts," Guy told her.

"Then offer them money. I know the mine makes a great profit for the Sheriff, and I have seen money change hands when men come to buy."

At the mention of the Sheriff's customers, Guy began to see the faint outline of a plan. Quickly, he counted backwards to the day that he had been wounded.

"In three days, a man who buys his ore from the Sheriff will make his monthly visit. He always insists on seeing a sample of the ore before he buys it, and he always brings his payments with him to the mine," Guy said.

"And if we were to be there when the money changed hands…" Djaq said.

"We could take the gold and free the slaves in the confusion," Guy finished for him.

"So you will speak to the outlaws?"

"If they don't kill us as soon as they see us," Guy said.

"Don't be a pessimist, Gisborne. I told you… they do not look like cruel men. Just desperate ones. We should go after the sun has set. More of them will be in the camp when it is dark."

"And without the light, we'll be hard to chase," Guy added.

"Well, that is certainly more optimistic," Djaq said, his dark eyes bright with amusement.  
  


#####

At dusk that evening, when the old trees of Sherwood cast long shadows on the forest floor, Guy and Djaq picked their way through the wood. Djaq had fashioned Guy a makeshift hood and mask out of his old head covering that hid all of Guy's face but his eyes, and he had insisted that Guy wear the long cloak he had packed in his saddlebag in case of rain. The mask made it difficult for him to see, and the cloak caught and snagged on thorns and branches, but better that than be recognized by a thief looking to collect the bounty on his head. It was a quick walk up the stream from the pond where they had camped, and Guy smelled the smoke from the outlaws' fire long before they got within sight of the camp. They were roasting venison, and after a week of fish and roots and berries, Guy's stomach began to rumble.

They moved more carefully as they drew nearer, and finally, Djaq motioned for Guy to keep his head down and beckoned him over to a lichen-covered stone half-buried in the ground. Guy scrambled over and, at Djaq's urging, briefly glanced over the top of the boulder. The outlaws' camp was on the other side, spread out over a small clearing. There were several fires, not just one, and four or five men sat around each of them. The camp seemed calm, and most of the men were talking peaceably with each other. Some were caring for their bows, and others were mending clothes or shoes or belts.

Having taken stock of the situation, Guy crouched behind the rock and adjusted his mask, which was creeping down over his left eye. If he was going to keep his face hidden for much longer, he would have to find a better way to do it.

"If you are going to speak to them, you should do it now, before their sentries find us," Djaq urged him.

"To late for that," a voice from the trees said, and Guy heard the unmistakable sound of a bow string being pulled taut. Slowly, he and Djaq both stood and held their hands far away from their weapons. Then, the leaves rustled, the branches parted, and Will Scarlett stepped into view with a fully drawn arrow pointed at the middle of Guy's chest.

"We mean you no harm," Guy said, trying to keep his voice soft and smooth. Beside him, Djaq had the good sense to keep quiet.  
  
Scarlett regarded Djaq for a long while, obviously wary of his dark skin and foreign features. Then, he narrowed his eyes at Guy for a moment, and Guy feared that he had been recognized. If Will knew him, though, he gave no sign, and he kept an arrow trained on him.  
  
"What have you got there, Scarlett?" someone from the camp called.  
  
"Not Sheriff's men. Just two more like us," Will shouted back. Then, he motioned with the point of his arrow for his prisoners to move around the rock and into the camp. Men looked up from what they were doing as the newcomers approached, and several of them began to reach for weapons, but kept them sheathed at a brief shake of the head from Will.  
  
A large, bearded man with a long coat and a heavy staff got up from his place by the central fire and came to meet them. The other outlaws seemed to give him a wide berth, and Guy knew that this was the man that he would need to convince if any others were to follow.  
  
"What's your business in our part of the forest, then?" the big man demanded.  
  
"Good money for you and your men, if you want it," Guy said.  
  
That seemed to get the big man's interest, and he relaxed slightly, leaning on his staff.  
  
"And what money would that be?" he asked.  
  
"Let me tell all of your men at once, and you can decide if you'd like a part of it once you've heard me out," Guy offered.  
"If no one likes what I have to say, we'll be on our way, and we won't bother you again. Does that sound fair?" Guy knew that if the outlaws truly took offense at what he had to say, there were twenty of them and one of him, and they could kill him with no one the wiser. From the look on the big man's face, he knew it too, but chose not to say so.  
  
"Fair it is," the large outlaw said at last. He turned to face the rest of the camp. "Quiet!" he bellowed. The chatter instantly died down. "The tall fellow in the hood has something to say."  
  
Guy climbed to the top of the rock he and Djaq had just been hiding behind, ignoring the stab of pain in his injured leg. He drew himself up to his full height and looked out at the curious faces staring up at him. It seemed that Djaq had been right in her assessment. These men were hunters and poachers, and maybe highway robbers, but they were not murderers. Most of them wore tattered clothes and unkempt beards, but there was a patient, weathered tenaciousness about them.  
  
Guy cleared his throat, and then, in a voice that all could hear, he said, "My partner and I intend to rob the Sheriff's mine and free his slaves." There was no sense in hiding the fact. If they were going to laugh at him, let them do it now. Some of them did laugh, though it was a nervous sound, as if they did not want the consequences of Guy's folly coming too close to the place where they made their beds at night.  
  
"Good luck with that," someone in the crowd said. It was a voice that Guy had heard before. "The money'd be nice, but we can't spend it if we're dead," the same voice continued. Many of the outlaws laughed, and one of them slapped the man who had been speaking on the shoulder. It was Allan, the man from Dale, yet another of the men Guy had helped the Night Watchman to save from the gallows.  
  
"I will admit that it's a risk, but if we were successful, each man's share would feed everyone in this camp for the next five winters," Guy said. "My partner and I… have come into some information. We know the workings of the mine, we know when the guards change, and we know that in three days, the Sheriff will be paid for a shipment of his ore with a chest of gold that could be ours if we were bold enough to take it."  
  
Several of the outlaws seemed to be seriously considering Guy's proposal when the large outlaw spoke up. "Boldness is what ran most of us into Sherwood in the first place," he said. "Boldness will get a man killed."  
  
Guy had no argument with that. He'd certainly done enough stupid, daring things for one lifetime in the past months, but he did not like that three quarters of the crowd was nodding in agreement. He was losing them, and if he did not win some agreement quickly, he doubted that he ever would.  
  
"Then we will be cunning as well as bold," Guy said. "We will watch the mine from the cover of the forest, we will make a plan, we will use what my partner and I know, and we will steal the Sheriff's gold for ourselves." He closed his fist smartly around the air in front of him to drive home his point.  
  
"And we will free the slaves?" Will Scarlett asked. Guy had not spent too long on that particular part of the plan, thinking that the outlaws would be more likely to follow greed than conscience.  
  
"Yes. There will be confusion when we attack the camp, and we plan to free them."  
  
"Why would we want to do that?" someone demanded. "Aren't we fighting their kind in the Holy Land?"  
  
"Because they are men like you," Guy reasoned, "and because when we free them, they will not be our enemies. They will be our friends, and they will take up arms against the Sheriff's guards if we can find them weapons."  
  
Not a single one of them seemed to be very happy at the idea of fighting side by side with Saracens, but Guy pressed on.  
  
"I have told you what I plan to do. Those that help me will have a share of the take, and they'll know that they made the Sheriff look the fool at his own mine." A few men laughed at that, and Guy felt the mood of his audience shift ever so slightly in his favor. He was quick to take advantage of his small gain. "So who will join us? Who will help us rob the mine?" he asked.  
  
There was silence in the clearing for a few long moments, and then Will Scarlett said, "I will."  
  
A few of the other outlaws were holding whispered conversations, but no one else spoke up. The big man had gone back to his place by the fire, and he appeared to be deep in thought. Finally, he stood, and banging his staff against the ground, said, "I will go with you."  
  
Guy had hoped that the big man's support would bring more of the outlaws to his cause, but he was disappointed. Just when he thought that he had only gained two more men, Will Scarlett started speaking urgently to the man from Dale. Will had an exasperated look on his face, and his comrade laughed and smiled and shook his head, but when Will's eyes hardened and true anger etched itself into his features, Allan a Dale put his hands out in a gesture of conciliation.  
  
"All right, all right," he said, "no need to get in a huff about it." Then, he looked up at Guy and grinned. "Don't know about you lot, but money sounds good to me. Count me in."

#####

  
After the other outlaws had gone to sleep, Guy, Djaq, and the three men who had agreed to help them sat around the remains of the biggest fire. The big outlaw, who had introduced himself as John Little, had offered to share the venison with them, and they were still gnawing the last of the meat from the bones and licking the juice off their fingers.  
  
"The two of you are new to the forest," John observed  
  
"We are," Guy said. "A week ago, Djaq here was a slave at the mines, and I had a proper roof over my head."  
  
"And how are you finding life in Sherwood?" Allan a Dale asked. He was leaning against a tree stump and passing a copper crown over the backs of his fingers in a flippant display of dexterity.  
  
"I believe that my circumstances have improved," Djaq said. "His, on the other hand," he nodded in Guy's direction, "have not."  
  
"So, you've got a name _and_ a tongue," Allan said, peering curiously at Djaq.

The boy had hung back during the outlaws' introductions, and he had not spoken since Will Scarlett had caught them skulking around the camp, so three inquisitive sets of eyes were trained on him as he shot back, "I do, though you were making such good use of yours that I thought I had best be quiet."

Allan, who was apparently not used to having his wit thrown back in his face, looked shocked for a moment before making a great show of feigning offense. John Little laughed at Allan's mock-injured expression, frightening birds from the tree above him, and even the stoic Will Scarlett chuckled quietly as he put a hand on Allan's shoulder in commiseration.

"Him, I like," John declared.

For the first time, Guy was glad that he had allowed Djaq to come with him to the camp. The boy had a way about him that made people trust him, and his broad, knowing smile had made friends of the outlaws who had been ready to shoot them for trespassing not two hours before. Guy knew that he could not have achieved such a thing alone.

"And what about you, Man in the Hood," Allan asked when the laughter had died down. "You know all of our names, and we know your friend Djaq's name, but I don't hear you saying much about yourself."

"And I'd like to keep it that way," Guy said curtly. They might have agreed to help him when he was simply another thief in the forest, but it would be an entirely different matter if they saw his face. Will, Guy thought, might stay, but over dinner he had come to learn that John Little hated the Sheriff and all who followed him with a terrible loathing, and Guy knew that he could not afford to lose John's help. Not when they were so few already.

"I don't think that's fair, is it?" Allan asked, looking around the group for support. Guy scowled under his mask. Allan was not going to make it easy for him to stay anonymous. "You know my name but I don't know yours? How do we know you're not just trying to lead us into a trap?" He turned to address Will and John. "You're both dim if you're not thinking it already. John?"

John frowned. "What Allan says is true," he said, eyeing Guy suspiciously again.

"I am not trying to fool you. Believe me when I say that I risk more than any of you by revealing myself to strangers," Guy said. He did not like having to explain himself to these men, all of whom would have been beneath his notice had he still lived in Nottingham, and the irritation crowded into his voice.

"That's what you _would_ say, isn't it?" Allan asked, skeptically raising one eyebrow.

"I say it because it's the truth," Guy snarled.

"And I say I won't work with a man who won't show me his face," John declared, effectively putting an end to the argument.

"On one condition." Guy said. "All of you must swear that you will hear me out after I show myself."

Again, Will was the first to speak. "I swear it."

Next to Will, Allan sighed at his friend's gullibility. "And me, I suppose," he said.

"I swear I'll hear you," John said solemnly. "Now off with it."

As Guy pushed the hood back from his forehead, he thought he saw Will Scarlett nod briefly to him in encouragement. Then, he untied the strips of cloth that held his mask in place and let it fall around his neck, looking at his companions for the first time with his face uncovered.

"Well met, Sir Guy," Will said softly. "I wondered if that was you."

John squinted at him for a moment, trying to remember where he had seen him before.

"Guy… of Gisborne?" John asked. "The Sheriff's man?" His face was dark with anger, and Guy knew that he had very little time.

"You swore to listen," he reminded John.

He may have been furious, but John Little was a man of his word. "You'd best talk fast," he growled, gripping the staff that had been balanced against his seat with both hands.

"Yes, I was the Sheriff's man, but I am no longer in his service. He asked me to do something that I could not do," Guy said. "And since my defiance was… difficult to hide, I find myself a wanted man."

"What was it he wanted you to do?" John asked.

"Kill Djaq." Guy didn't look at the boy as he said it.

"But as you can see, I am still here," Djaq said, and took over the telling, for which Guy was grateful. "I had been caught trying to escape, and the Sheriff thought I was too much trouble to allow me to live. But Gisborne could not do it, and so he helped me to run instead."

Their story was beginning to work on John, and Guy watched cautiously as the anger drained from the big man's face.

"A fine story, if it's true," John admitted.

Djaq pointed to the bandage wrapped around Guy's leg. "He did not do this to himself. The Sheriff's men tried to kill him as we escaped."

"I trust him, John," Will said. "And so should you. He's the one who helped us get out of the castle."

"That's right…" Allan sounded as if he'd just come up with the answer to a difficult riddle. "I knew I'd seen your face before. That was you, wasn't it?"

"It was," Guy said.

Allan smiled a bit sheepishly and rubbed a hand on the back of his own neck. "Never did get to thank you for that," he mused.

"You help me now, and we'll be even," Guy offered.

"You have a deal," Allan said, and gave Guy a lopsided grin that made him wonder if Allan's help wouldn't be more trouble than it was worth.

Guy knew he still had Will's help if he wanted it, and so John was the only man around the fire of whom he was uncertain.  
  
"John?" Guy asked. "Are you with us? My information is still good, and the money is still real."

"Then you'll still have my help," John said. He offered Guy his hand, and Guy took it, one outlaw to another.

#####

John, Will, and Allan shared what little extra bedding they had with the new arrivals, and showed them a place at the edge of the camp where they could bed down for the night.  
  
"That went well, I think," Djaq said as he lay back, elbows out, forearms beneath his head.  
  
"They didn't kill us, but we are still only five men," Guy said sourly.  
  
"I believe that we are five _good_ men," Djaq said.  
  
"Good or bad, five is not much better than two."  
  
"Yes," Djaq said, closing his eyes, "but it is better."  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the things I remember surprising me as I wrote this story is Guy and Djaq's friendship. I didn't mean for it to be such an important part of the story, it just happened organically, and I love it so much it makes me sad now to watch episodes of actual canon where they're on opposite sides!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Sheriff's mine comes under attack.

By the time the sun was high overhead the next day, half of the outlaws who had been in the camp the night before were gone, most of them disappearing into the forest without a word, though one broad-shouldered blond man did come to say goodbye to John, who looked sad for a while afterwards. Will and Allan, who had set off just after sunrise to scout the mine, returned in the evening carrying a wheel of cheese, some bread, and what looked like more than a hundred arrows bound together with a leather cord.

"Where did you go to get those?" Guy asked as the two of them were adding the food they had brought to the group's supplies.  
  
"Don't worry. We weren't seen by anyone who cares," Allan said.  
  
"I do work sometimes for people I trust in the villages," Will explained. "They know me, and they know I do good work, and so they've got no reason to call the Sheriff down on me. I knew we needed food and weapons, and so I called in some favors."

"Besides, we have better things to do than hunt to keep from starving," Allan said.

"And I could make arrows for the next three days, but I would have time for nothing else if I wanted to make this many," Will said, holding up his bundle.

"That is generous of you," Djaq said. He had a shallow pan in his lap, and he was washing a bunch of herbs with purple, bell-shaped flowers that he had found growing by the banks of the stream. He had been happy to find it, and he had gathered a great deal of it.

Will shrugged, obviously uncomfortable with the compliment, sat down next to Djaq, and picked up one of the plants he'd gathered.

"This is comfrey, right? My mother used to grow it in her garden," Will said.

"I did not know its name in English, but I know that it slows bleeding," Djaq said as he continued with his task.

"Where'd you learn all that, anyway?" Allan asked around a mouthful of cheese and bread.

"My father was a physician, and I assisted him from the time I was a small child," Djaq said. "When I got older, he made me his partner." He was washing the herbs more vigorously now, and none of them dared to ask him what had happened to his father.

"I'm lucky that he did," Guy said. Though his leg was not yet completely healed, he could walk and ride without too much pain.

All was silent but for the sound of water splashing against Djaq's pan until Will tuned to Guy and said, "When we were in the village, I heard the people talking, and I had an idea. The Night Watchman… The people were saying that no one has seen him for a week or two, but last night, he came back. They showed me what he'd left for them. And that made me think… Why don't we ask the Night Watchman for help? You know him, don't you? You worked with him on the day you saved us."

"I saw him fight," Allan agreed. "He'd be a great help."

Guy shook his head. "I can't."

"If the man can help us, surely there must be some way to…" Will started to say.

"I don't even know who he is," Guy said. "I never saw his face, and I don't know how to find him. Everything I did to help him I arranged through someone else, and I couldn't get close to that person right now without risking both our lives." No, he would not bring Marian into this, even if she was the reason he was hiding in the forest with a half-healed arrow wound in his leg. As far as he knew, she was safe at Knighton, and he intended for her to stay that way. "We'll have to do our best without the Night Watchman."

Will plucked one of the arrows from the bundle he had brought. "Then that's what we'll do," he said. Then, turning from the group, he raised his bow but did not fire as he tested the sighting along the length of the arrow.

#####

Two days later, they reached the outskirts of the forest that adjoined the mine an hour after noon. The guards stood at their posts, tired, bored, and listless, just as Guy had said they would be. They had been there since early morning, but their replacements would not arrive for another hour. It would be a good time to strike if the sheriff's customers would be so kind as to make their appearance before the more rested men appeared. The Sheriff did not appear to have increased the complement of guards at the mine, which was fortunate. They were outnumbered six to one as it was.

Guy nodded to Will, who split off from the group, running parallel with the road to the mine in the direction the money would be coming from. Horses and carriages made a great deal of dust, and Will would see them long before they arrived.

Djaq crouched beside Guy, shading his eyes from the sun and squinting out over the mine.

"All of the shafts are in operation," he said. "We will have to guard the ladders while the slaves climb up if they are to join us," he said.

"We can do that," Guy said. "And once they're armed, maybe you can get their fellows who are above ground to help us there." Each of them carried extra knives, clubs, and assorted weapons that they intended to pass to the Saracens as soon as the fighting started.

Behind them, Allan wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve and sank to the ground with his back against a tree.  
"And now, we wait, and hope the Sheriff hasn't changed his plans," he said.

"He hasn't," Guy insisted. "The Sheriff still wants his money."

#####

Perhaps three quarters of an hour had passed when Will Scarlett came running up to them. He dropped into a crouch by Guy, Djaq, and John.

Still breathing hard, he said, "They're coming. They're half a mile off."

John went to shake Allan, who was dozing while they waited. Guy didn't know how the Allan could manage to sleep. He was filled with nervous energy. He did not like being back at the mine, but he knew that if they were successful, it would be some measure of revenge against the Sheriff, who Guy was coming to realize that he hated. Being on his own again, away from Vasey's constant watchfulness, had made a great many things clear. The power the Sheriff offered him would have been bought at the price of his soul, and if Guy had stayed loyal to him, he might have been influential, but he would have become less than human in the meantime.

"You all know what to do," he said, looking around the group until he got a nod of confirmation from each one of them. "Then go."

Will and Djaq ran in one direction, toward the back of the mine, and Allan, John, and Guy raced toward the entrance. Already, Guy could see the merchant's carriage cresting the hill before descending down into the valley. At the entrance to the mine, the carriage came to a halt, and one of the guards spoke to the driver briefly before waving it inside. Once inside, the driver hopped from his seat and opened the door, and a tall, rail-thin man in fine grey velvet stepped to the ground. Ten of the mine's guards were waiting to escort him to inspect the ore he was to purchase, and they made a tight box around him, lest any of the slaves think to do him harm. The merchant strode confidently across the barren ground, as if he was master of all he saw, and when he came to the pile of ore the earth had recently given up, he picked it up and examined it carefully. He did not seem to care that it dirtied his hands, and he even held it close to his face and sniffed at it.

The merchant had just put the first piece of ore down when a single burning arrow arced over the mine and buried itself in the side of the shed that held all of the extra tools—mostly picks, shovels, and lengths of rope, if Guy remembered correctly. A second arrow followed the first, landing on the roof of the shed. The fire spread quickly, and one of the guards nearby cried out in alarm. Several of the men who had been escorting the merchant broke off from the group to help put out the fire, and soldiers from all over the camp left their posts as well.

With the mine in confusion, Guy broke cover and began to run across the field toward the entrance with John and Allan following close behind. The two guards who were posted at the road had regrettably not abandoned their posts, and they readied themselves as the three outlaws came closer. With the advantage of surprise lost, John let out a deep-chested yell that made the guards grip their swords tighter in trepidation.

One guard, who was a good six inches shorter than John, did as he had been taught and tried to block with his pike as John's staff came whistling through the air at him, but John knocked the weapon away like a man swatting a fly and landed a strike against the guard's side. Guy heard ribs crack, and the man doubled over in pain. The second guard found himself facing Guy, and though he dropped confidently into a fighting stance, Guy could see the fear in his eyes. Guy smiled under his mask. Djaq had fashioned him a new hood and mask out of black fabric he had bartered for with another of the outlaws. It did not block his vision as the old one had, and when Djaq had showed his handiwork to the other outlaws, Will had likened Guy to a tall, faceless Death.

Guy drew his short sword and faced the guard with a weapon in both hands. The guard seemed content to let Guy attack first, and attack he did, his blows hard and fast and vicious. Guy saw John and Allan making for the merchant's carriage as he traded strikes and parries with the soldier, and when he saw the merchant's driver jump from his seat, yelling at the top of his lungs, he knew he had to clear the entrance quickly, before more guards got wind of what they were doing. Guy feinted right, and when the guard moved to block him, Guy drove his short sword into the fleshy part of the guard's leg where the chain mail the Sheriff had provided gave him no protection. The guard screamed and dropped to the ground, and bright blood stained the dust where he fell. When Guy began to pass him, the man still tried to rise.

"Stay down," Guy said menacingly, and he held the tip of his sword at the man's throat. He didn't want to kill any more of the Sheriff's men than he had to, but he would not hesitate if his hand were forced.

At the carriage, John and Allan had the driver of the carriage on his back on the ground, and John was looming over him threateningly while Allan shook his head in disappointment.

"I thought you were smarter than that, Mate," Allan said. "I told you not to make the big man angry." John growled down at the driver to prove Allan's point.

"I told you… I don't know where it is," the prone man insisted.

"What's wrong here?" Guy asked as he joined them.

"No money in the carriage," Allan said. "We looked."

"It's there," Guy assured him. He pointed his sword at the driver's throat, gently nicking his skin just enough to draw blood. "I want the key to the secret compartment," Guy said.

The driver went pale. "There isn't a…" he started to say.

Guy let the weight of the sword press harder against the man's throat. "I know you're lying, and I know you have the key. You can give it to me now, or I can kill you and take it when you're dead."

Unable to move his head enough to nod, the driver blinked frantically. "I have it," he said. Guy withdrew his sword, and Allan and John hauled the man to his feet. He reached into a pouch on his belt and took out a key. Guy snatched it from him and jumped up into the carriage. He searched the bench along the back wall for the knot in the wood that slid out of the way to reveal the secret compartment. When he found the knot, he pried it open and turned the key in the hole. Suddenly, a large section of the bench swung up on hidden hinges.

"It's in there," Guy said, jumping to the ground. "Get it out of here."

Allan and John each took one side of the chest that had been hidden under the seat and took off for the forest. They had prepared a hiding place for the chest where it would be safe and hidden until the slaves were freed and they could run deeper into Sherwood. Guy only hoped it would not take too long. Some of the guards were beginning to notice that all was not right near the entrance of the mine, and the merchant was screaming at them and gesturing wildly at his carriage. Three of them came running toward Guy at once, and he readied himself to meet them.

There was no time for precision, no time for mercy. Guy killed the first man before the other two had time to close with him, and while his sword was still embedded in the man's gut, he blocked a blow from another of the guards. He freed his sword quickly, and it soon became clear to him that these two men were better trained than the ones he had faced before. They knew how to work together, and they fought to tire him rather than to land a hit, knowing that he could not outlast them.

Guy was beginning to worry when one of the men flung out his arms wildly to the side, arched his back, and fell face down with an arrow between his shoulders. The other man was only surprised for a fraction of a second, but it was enough for Guy to drive his sword up between his opponent's ribs.

Across the open ground, Will Scarlett raised his bow in salute, and Guy raised his sword to show that he was well.  
Several fires burned around the camp now, and the soldiers who were not trying to put them out were bunched around the merchant or trying to herd the slaves into the buildings where they slept. It seemed that the soldiers were doing part of the outlaws' job for them—as Guy watched, they lowered the ladders down into the mine shafts and roughly helped the Saracens up to the surface before forcing them to the sleeping quarters at spear-point.

The guards were spread thin. There were three of them trying to keep control of twenty Saracen men, and when one of them fell with Will's arrow in his shoulder, there were only two. The slaves began to jostle restlessly when the first guard went down, and when Djaq appeared from out of nowhere at the second guard's side and slashed at him with one of Guy's short, curved knives, the Saracens erupted into shouts and cheers that made Guy remember another day long passed when he had stood under the harsh, unrelenting sun of Palestine.

The Saracens overpowered the last remaining guard, and one of them held the sword he had just taken up and gave a shout of victory that spread quickly to the other men. Then, Djaq and Will were in the midst of the former slaves, putting knives and clubs and hefty sticks in eager hands. Djaq was speaking quickly in Arabic, and he was so far away that Guy could not make out what he said. The Saracens seemed to listen, though, and they turned as one towards the fifteen remaining guards, who had bunched themselves together around the merchant. For a moment, guards and Saracens stared at each other coldly across the distance that separated them.

It was then that Allan and John returned from the forest, shouting and whooping. Both Saracens and guards forward, and the battle was joined. With so many guards dead or injured, they were outnumbered now, and even though the Saracens were weak and poorly fed, they fought with cunning and desperation. As soon as the two groups closed, one of them reached up and threw dust in a soldier's eyes before knocking him on the head with the branch he carried. The soldier reeled, and a second Saracen felled him with a single stroke of his club. When they could, the soldiers tried to focus their attacks on the outlaws. Allan, finding himself facing two soldiers at once and pressed up against one of the smoldering buildings, grinned with relief as one of the Saracens expertly sent a knife spinning through the air, dropping one of Allan's opponents to the ground. Not one to squander opportunity, Allan quickly kicked the legs out from under the other guard and knocked his head to the side with a hard punch as he went down.

Very soon, the soldiers began to give way and fall back toward the carriage and the entrance to the mine where the ashen-faced merchant was already climbing into his carriage.

"Let them run!" Guy said. He did not want to kill too many soldiers or let a stray arrow hit Vasey's customer. The Sheriff would be angry enough already, and there was no need to give him further cause for alarm. Djaq repeated Guy's order in Arabic, and the Saracens stopped their pursuit and let the guards run.

Before they could celebrate, however, they heard the sound of many feet marching in step, and soon they could see twenty men with polished helmets and spears cresting the ridge. The guards' afternoon replacements had arrived.  
The soldier who led the march was on horseback, and when he saw the fires and that the slaves were armed, he barked commands at his men, and they broke into a run with their spears carried at an angle before them. The guards who had formerly retreated joined in the charge. Angry shouts broke out among the Saracens, and Guy heard Allan's voice complain, "Again? Really?"

"Hold!" Guy shouted. "We may be tired, but they've just marched for the last two hours. Let them run to us!" When Djaq had translated his orders for him, Guy was impressed to see that not a man among them broke the line. It made sense, he supposed, that most of the slaves would be trained soldiers, taken as prisoners of war.

Vasey's men crashed into the line of Saracens, and a short, bloody battle ensued. The men the outlaws faced now had not been surprised, and they were fresh and well organized. Guy saw two Saracens die on the point of one soldier's sword before John crashed through the melee and knocked the man aside with his staff. Will Scarlett stood back and fired arrow after arrow, hitting legs and arms and shoulders, and when his enemies drew too near, he put his bow aside and unlooped his axe from his belt. As for Guy, he was in the thick of things. He knew these men, knew how they had been trained to fight, and he knew that they were used to facing people who feared them—rabble-rousing peasants or unruly crowds of townsfolk. Though they had been trained in combat, they would not know what to do with a man who was truly bent on their destruction.

The Sheriff's soldiers quickly learned that Guy was one to avoid, and many of them shrunk from facing him. He forced them to meet his blade anyway, but wherever he was, his enemies fell back. Finally, the guard on horseback shouted for his men to retreat, and they formed up once again around the merchant's carriage. As they ran back towards Nottingham, Will raised his bow and fired a single parting shot. The arrow came down squarely in the middle of the carriage's roof, and Allan whistled with appreciation at Will's marksmanship.  
  
When they were out of sight, Guy shouted, "We take what we can use. Food, tools, anything of value."  
  
For the next few minutes, both outlaws and Saracens worked together, scouring the camp for supplies. What they found, they brought to the edge of the mine nearest the trees, and when they were done, they all gathered to see what they had scavenged.  
  
"How much time do we have?" Djaq asked. "How long before the Sheriff hears of this?"  
  
"Hours," Guy told him. "Longer than that before he sends more men."  
  
"Good. I have something to say to my countrymen." Djaq raised his voice and shouted a few short, angry words in Arabic. The Saracens roared in response, and those who were not injured spread out over what was left of the mine, taking fire where it had not reached already, tearing at the wooden entrances to the shafts and dropping burning brands down into the open pits.  
  
"What did you tell them?" Guy asked.

"I told them to tear it down. Everything. We will not make it easy for the Sheriff to use this mine to enslave my people again," Djaq said.

"You could have told me first," Guy said, but he did not make a move to stop the destruction.

"Would you have said no?" Djaq asked.

"Would you have listened?" Guy shook his head. "It's fine. It's fitting that they tear it down."

When there was nothing left of the mine but smoldering rubble, the Saracens came back again, all of them looking at Guy and Djaq expectantly.

"Tell them to follow us into the forest as carefully as they can. We don't want to leave a path for the Sheriff to follow. We found some food, and we will all share it tonight, and in the morning we can help them to start home."

Djaq passed Guy's message to the newly-freed men, and when Djaq said the word he knew meant "home," Guy saw several of them repeat it under their breaths as if whispering a prayer.

#####

They ate well in Sherwood that night, and though many of the Saracens spoke little English and none but Guy and Djaq had any Arabic, the language of camaraderie and good, warm food was enough to have all of them laughing and talking with their hands. When the morning came, Will broke the lock on the chest of coins with his axe, and Guy divided the money in half. One part went back in the chest, and the other was divided among the Saracens. Guy had Djaq point them toward the coast and tell them how to find a fair price on a passage back to the Holy Land. Guy had expected the boy to stay behind a while to say goodbye and then follow his countrymen, but Djaq showed no sign of leaving. When the Saracens had gone, the camp was nearly empty. The rest of the outlaws who had not helped with the rescue had disappeared the day before, and so Guy and his companions had the fine camp by the stream to themselves. They divided the remaining gold into five portions and talked long into the night about their plans for their newly acquired riches.  



	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Wolf's Head takes his first mark in Sherwood, and the outlaws make themselves at home.

For a week after the battle at the mine, neither Guy nor the rest of them ventured far from the camp. Sometimes, one or two of them would leave to hunt, but they always came back quickly and shared what they had found. Will presented Djaq and Guy with bows that he had made, and in the early afternoon before the wind picked up, they went to a clearing near the camp and practiced archery. Guy had been a fair hand with the bow before, but Will Scarlett put him to shame, and Allan wasn't half bad either when he could stop bragging long enough to take a shot.

Guy did not want for food, and he had a place by a warm fire at night, but as the days went on, he began to grow restless. He did not like hiding, for one thing, and for another, he sensed that the other outlaws were watching him carefully, waiting for him to do… something. What it was, he did not know.

He felt this unspoken curiosity coming strongly from Djaq one night as they all sat around the fire making short work of the brace of rabbits Will and John had snared.

"What are you looking at?" Guy growled.

"Nothing," Djaq said innocently. "I am sorry… was I looking at you strangely?"

"You act like you want something from me. Not just you, Djaq. All of you. What is it?" Guy asked.

Djaq and Will shared a look between them, and Guy was irritated that they seemed to know more about whatever this secret was than he did.

"We were just wondering what you were planning to do next," Will said.

"What we were planning to do next," Djaq corrected him.

"And why would I be the one to decide that?" Guy asked. "You're all free men, free as outlaws in Sherwood can be. Why wait for me?"

Again, all of them looked at him as if there was something that they knew and he didn't.

"Guy…" John said hesitantly, "we all worked well together at the mine, don't you think?"

"We did," Guy agreed, still wondering where this was going.

"We did a good thing, freeing those men, and we could do more," Will said. "Winter's getting closer, and the people are hungry. John and I went to Locksley today, and even with Robin to protect them, the village looks half-starved. I don't want to think about what it's like elsewhere."

"And what would you have me do about it?" Guy asked. "It's not as if we could take the castle."

"We give the poor money to feed themselves and their families, and to buy medicines for their children," Will said. As always, when he spoke of the needy, a bright, steady fire burned in his eyes.

"And where are we going to get that kind of money?" Guy asked scornfully. There were hundreds of families in the villages, and even more in the beggars' camps around Nottingham. Even the gold that they had stolen from the iron merchant would not feed so many for so long. The second after he said it, he realized he had used the word _we_. He sighed.

"We do what we did at the mine," Will said, smiling conspiratorially. "We steal from the rich."

"We may not be able to take the castle," Allan said, "but here in Sherwood, we could be the masters." Allan seemed to like the sound of that idea.

"But we would need _you_ ,” Djaq said to Guy before he could ask what any of this nonsense had to do with him. "You are the one who knows the Sheriff best. You know how he thinks, you can predict what he will do and use his secrets against him."

"And you're the one he and the rest of the nobles are afraid of," Will said. "We saw a sign nailed up in the square at Locksley offering a hundred pounds for the capture of the tall outlaw in the black Death's hood."

"Besides," Djaq said, "the plan at the mine was yours. We followed you, and we made it work. Without you, we have many good intentions and nothing to do with them."

Guy stared down at his hands as all of them watched him expectantly, waiting for an answer. What they were suggesting was dangerous, and it would most likely end with all of them at the end of a rope, but the alternative was to hide in Sherwood, cowering like a hunted animal for fear the Sheriff might one day find and kill him. And Guy of Gisborne was no frightened deer.

"We should watch the Old Road," Guy said at last. As he began to speak, all of them leaned in, their faces full of the excitement that came with planning something risky. "The Sheriff sometimes sends his messengers and his money that way because it is less traveled…"

#####

Two days later, Guy waited behind a broad tree trunk close to the Old Road. He could hear the sound of hoof beats coming closer, each step rustling the orange and yellow leaves that carpeted the forest floor. The rider was in no hurry, for the horse was only walking, and walking slowly, at that. A shrill bird's call from across the road startled a pair of pheasants that had been hiding in the grass nearby, and Guy felt the wind of their wings as they took to the sky. It was Guy's signal to move.

He stepped out from behind the tree and stood in the middle of the road, one gloved hand raised in front of him. Fifteen feet away, the lone rider's horse shied at the sight of the tall, masked figure who had suddenly stepped into its path, but it was well-trained enough that its rider soon calmed it. The man on the horse looked down at Guy with an imperious gaze. He was finely dressed in green and yellow velvet, and though he was not exactly stout, he had obviously never wanted for food. Guy remembered him vaguely—a minor nobleman with an arrogance that far outmatched his station. Today, Guy thought, this man's inflated sense of his own importance would be their gain. A golden chain hung over his shoulders, and a fat purse hung at his belt.  
  
"Out of the way," the rider said, never for a moment doubting that he would be obeyed. "Or do I look so weak as to let one man rob me?" He laughed scornfully as he put his hand on the hilt of the sword that hung at his belt.  
  
"Not one man," Guy said, and he nodded at the rest of the outlaws. John and Will appeared from one side, and John stood on road, blocking the nobleman's retreat. Djaq and Allan came from the other side, and the nobleman was surrounded.  
  
"The Sheriff does not take kindly to those who rob his friends," the nobleman said acerbically. "And believe me when I say he is my friend."  
  
"The Sheriff isn't here," Guy said.  
  
"But we are," Allan added. The nobleman glared at Allan, who favored him with a wide, friendly grin from behind the arrow he was pointing at the nobleman's chest.  
  
"We'll take the chain around your neck," Guy said, holding out his hand. The nobleman touched the finely worked gold as if wounded, but when he saw Djaq draw his bow back further, he lifted it over his head and put it in Guy's outstretched hand.  
  
"We'll take your purse as well," Will said.  
  
His face red with shame and anger, the nobleman untied his purse from his belt and threw it to the ground at Guy's feet. John caught Guy's eye from his position behind their mark and tapped one finger against the knuckles of his other hand, indicating the noble's rings. He was wearing five of them: two on one hand, three on the other. The three on his left hand were too large, too conspicuous for the outlaws to trade easily. They would be recognizable to anyone in the Shire who knew to look for them. The rings on his right, however, were plain, fat bands of gold.  
  
Guy stepped forward and grabbed the reins of the horse. "We'll take the two rings from your right hand, as well," Guy said. He held out his hand again.  
  
"I will have these back," the nobleman insisted as he yanked the rings roughly from his fingers and laid them in Guy's palm. "When you are hunted down like dogs in the forest."  
  
"And until then, we thank you for the use of them," Guy said, mockingly touching his hand to his forehead. Allan snickered, and the nobleman's face grew even darker.  
  
"Damn you all for insolent wolf's heads!" he yelled. "The Sheriff will hear of this, and when he does, you will not be laughing!"  
  
Guy let go of the man's reins, and the horse took a few nervous steps forward.  
  
"You may tell the Sheriff that _this_ wolf's head sends his highest regards," Guy said as he stepped to the side of the road. It was a dangerous thing to say, but Guy did not think the man had recognized his voice, and wearing the mask had made Guy bold with his words.  
  
The nobleman gave them all one last look of disgust before driving his heels into his horse's ribs and galloping away, sending of a swirl of gold and copper leaves in his wake.

#####

With the gold they took from their first mark, and from others like him, Guy and the outlaws bought bread and meat and grain from men who would take their coin and did not ask too many questions. Some of it they stored for the winter months when food would be scarce even for those who did have the means to pay for it, but some they took to the villages, going where the Night Watchman had not been able to visit recently. Like the Night Watchman, they went under cover of darkness, and though some of the people were afraid of Guy and his Death's hood at first, they got over their fear when they saw that he had food to give them.  
  
One night when they were in Nettlestone, after the last of the food had been given out and the villagers had invited them to share their meal, Allan started telling stories. He told the story of Guy leading the band to the mine and freeing the slaves that toiled there, and when the people seemed to like it, he told another, and then another. Of course, he made them all fleeter, stronger, and more clever than they had been. To hear Allan tell it, Guy could move more quietly than a ghost through the forest and strike fear into the hearts of noblemen by his presence alone. Djaq could raise the dead with his herbs and poultices, John could knock over one of the standing stones with a single finger, and Will could shoot so straight and so far that he could put an arrow in the middle of the gates of London if he wanted to. As for Allan, he was witty in the stories, quick and cunning and charming, and that, Guy had to admit, was not too far from the truth.

The admiration in the peasants' eyes as Allan spun his tales made Guy uncomfortable at first. He had not gone looking for their trust or their thanks, and he thought about asking Allan to stop telling stories that featured him, but in the end, he did not. Even the third or fourth time Allan would launch into one of his accounts of their escapades, the people still listened eagerly, and the rest of the outlaws laughed along with them and added their own embellishments. Guy supposed there was no harm in it, and it seemed to bring some happiness to those who had little enough of it.  
  
It was not too long before someone put an old lute in Allan's hands, and he put his ear close to the strings as he plucked them and turned the pegs. When the tuning was done, he started to play a familiar tune, but the words he put to it were about new. He sang verse after verse about the Wolf's Head and his wily men, making some of them up as he went, and by the time he was done, the people were singing the chorus along with him.  
  
When they were on their way back to the camp that night, Guy asked Allan, "What was that business about 'The Wolf's Head' in your song tonight? All of us have prices on our heads, not just me."  
  
"We do," Allan agreed, "but that's what the people are calling you. Besides, you're not just a wolf's head. You're _The_ Wolf's Head. You can hear the difference when they say it."  
  
"Besides, it is fitting that they call you this," Djaq, who was walking behind them, said. "The tattoo on your arm is a wolf, is it not?"  
  
"It is," Guy said. He knew that all of them must have seen it, but none of them had asked where and why he had gotten it, for which he was thankful. He did not want to have to lie to them.  
  
"Is that what it's supposed to be?" Allan asked. "That would make for a good song…"  
  
"No!" Guy said. His voice was sharp and loud in the quiet of the forest. "You can't put it in a song. The Sheriff knows I have it," he explained. "And if he hears the song, then he will know that I am the one in the mask."  
  
"Shame, that…" Allan said.  
  
"No. Mention. Of the tattoo," Guy reiterated between gritted teeth. One had to be direct with Allan, Guy had learned, for he could find a way around any order that was not clearly and expressly given.  
  
Allan shrugged, and Guy walked on ahead of the others.

As far as Guy knew, the Sheriff did not know that he still lived. The talk in the villages was that the Sheriff had proclaimed Guy dead in dishonor for helping a foreign criminal to escape the mines, and Guy wanted it to stay that way. He found excuses not to go to Locksley with the others for fear that someone there would know his voice, and he spoke very little in the other villages.

In one thing, and one thing only, he was reckless. Once, in the days after they had robbed their first nobleman, Guy left the camp at dusk and snuck close enough to Knighton Hall that he could see the light from the lamps. After a while, Marian came and stood at one of the upper windows. Though he was far away, Guy could see that she was well, and that was enough. Marian looked out over the manor grounds for a moment as if searching for something, then she pulled the shutters closed. Guy left as quickly as he had come, and he did not go to Knighton again.

#####

The nights were growing colder and the days shorter, and by the first week of October it had rained more than once in Sherwood. Guy was still wet and cold from the last downpour when Allan, Will, and Djaq came back to the camp talking excitedly with one another.

Guy glanced at the two pheasants that Will held in one hand. "Not much between the three of you, is it?" he asked.

"We can eat from the stores tonight," Djaq said. "We may not have found food…"

"But we found something better," Will finished for him." Come and see."

Guy and John followed the three of them through the forest. The traveled deeper into Sherwood than Guy had ever been before until they came to a thick stand of trees and brush. Will determinedly pushed his way through the tangled foliage, and after struggling through the vines and branches for a little more than fifty yards, they broke through the other side into a small clearing. In the middle of it, half-covered in vines, was the ruin of a stone cottage.

Though Djaq had been one of the three who had discovered the ruin, he frowned, and he hesitated before stepping into the open. "I thought you told me this was the King's land," he said.

"It didn't used to be," Will said. "Before the Normans came, the forest belonged to those who lived in it."

Guy moved closer to the cottage. It was a good-sized building, and he could see through the open doorway that the hearth was still standing. The roof, however, had rotted away long ago, and there were holes in the wall large enough for him to fit his head through.

"I can fix it," Will said, coming to stand beside him. "If I had help, I could fix it before the month was out, and the stable in the back, as well."

"It's hidden well enough," Guy said as he walked around the back to see the stable Will had mentioned. They had acquired four more horses, two bought with stolen gold, and two taken outright from a stuffy noble who had five pulling his carriage. The cold season would be hard for the horses as well, and it would be good to have a place that sheltered their animals from the weather.

"We would be dry and warm, and I would have a place to keep my medicines so they would not get wet…" Djaq said longingly.

"It's a good place," John said with a decisive nod of his head.

Guy nodded as well, then turned to Will. "What do you need us to do first?" he asked.

#####

For the next two weeks, they worked most days from sunrise to sundown on the cottage, and travelers through Sherwood went mostly unmolested, with the exception of one supercilious clerk who had the misfortune of being in the forest as the outlaws came back from the pond with bundles of water reeds for thatching in their arms. When all was done, the clerk went on his way with his purse lighter, and the outlaws put away their weapons, retrieved the reeds they had put to the side, and continued home.

Guy worked long hours helping Will to replace broken beams, repair pieces of the wall that had crumbled, and thatch the sharply pitched roof. He was grateful for John's strength more than once, as the big man pushed support timbers into place that would have crushed anyone else. Djaq proved more than once that he was stronger than he looked, and Allan did everything he could to avoid physical labor, though when Djaq chided him enough, he would come and join them, and his talk made the hours pass more quickly.

When the second week of October drew to a close, Will declared the house livable, and they brought their horses, their bedding, and their supplies from the camp by the stream. They celebrated their new home by taking a deer and opening a cask of ale, and that night, for the first time since the day he had defied the Sheriff, Guy slept without the open sky overhead.  



	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Many secrets are revealed, and the Wolf's Head gains a new ally.

"Riders coming up the South Road!" Will called, running up the path that led from the trees to the cottage. "Allan's keeping an eye on them—two well-dressed men and a guard. They were two miles from the crossroads when I left, and if we hurry, we can cut them off before they reach the edge of the forest."  
  
Hurriedly, Guy banked the fire in the hearth and reached for his mask and hood. "Go," he said. "Take John with you and find Allan. I'll go get Djaq, and we'll meet you by the road."  
  
Will grabbed some extra arrows from the pile of them he had been making and loped off the way he had come, his long legs making short work of the distance. Guy took Djaq's sword and bow from their resting place by the boy's cot and set off for the stream. One of Djaq's many odd habits was his insistence on regular bathing. Even though the water in the stream was icy, he dutifully went to wash himself at least three or four times a week, no matter what the weather. Guy supposed it must have been a Saracen custom, and he did not begrudge Djaq his privacy. He knew what it was like to be a stranger in a foreign land. Today, however, the boy's bath would have to wait.  
  
As he approached the stream, he saw Djaq's shirt, vest, and breeches, hanging on a low branch along with a wide strip of cloth Guy had never seen the boy wear before. Djaq stood up to his waist in the deepest part of the stream, his back to Guy, cupping water in his hands and splashing it onto his face and head, then working his fingers through his short hair.  
  
"Get out and dry off," Guy said, taking the shirt from the branch so he could hand it to Djaq. "There are riders on the…" Djaq turned, startled, and the rest of Guy's sentence was lost to shock. Djaq was a woman.  
  
She tried to hide it, crossing her arms over her chest and sinking down onto her knees in the stream bed so that the water was up to her neck, but Guy had already seen two of her most distinguishing womanly features, and there was no denying what they were.  
  
"You are… a woman," an astonished Guy said.  
  
"Yes, you are right," Djaq said. "Now please give me my shirt."  
  
Guy stepped out onto a rock and stretched out his arm to hand her garment to her. She exposed as little of herself as she could when she took it from him, and she quickly pulled it over her head. She waded to the edge of the stream, and though Guy tried to look away, her shirt only came to her mid-thigh, and he saw her legs and the shape of her hips as she ducked behind a tree and pulled on her breeches. His face flushed with embarrassment. How many times had she seen all of _them_ undress? There was little room for privacy in the cottage, and none of them had thought there was a need for it.  
  
She came out into view again, fully clothed and looking just as she always had. She stared at him defiantly, waiting for him to break the silence.  
  
"Who else knows?" Guy asked.  
  
"Will Scarlett is the only one," Djaq said. "He… found me bathing on the day after we attacked the mine. I thought that I had learned to be more careful."  
  
"So long?" Guy asked. He did not like to think that such a secret had existed between them from the start, and it hurt him more than he would admit.  
  
"I asked him not to tell, and so he did not," Djaq said. "Tell me, would you have treated me any differently if you had known the truth? Would you have let me help you? Would you have let me fight with you?"  
  
"You're a _woman_ ," Guy said again, as if the answer were self-explanatory. Women were not made for thieving and fighting and surviving in the forest, or at least he had thought that they were not.  
  
Djaq sighed. "And that is why I did not tell you." She saw that he had brought her bow and her sword, and she picked them up from where he had laid them. "I promise that I have not changed." She belted on her sword and slung her bow across her back. "I can still fight, and I can still tend you when you are hurt. You have seen me do these things."  
  
"I have," Guy admitted. She fought as fiercely as any of them, and she seemed to have a knowledge of medicine that even the best physicians at the Sheriff's court could not match.  
  
"You were willing to let me be your brother in arms, though I was a Saracen," she reminded him. "Perhaps now, you will let me be your… sister in arms?" She raised her eyebrows hopefully, and it seemed to Guy as if she were two people at once, one a beardless young man, and one an exotically lovely woman. He wanted to be angry that she had lied, and to tell her she would have to find her own way now, but he could not. When he had saved her from the Sheriff, and she had saved him from the arrow, it had made them even, but it had also made them friends.  
  
"I will," he said, "but you should tell John and Allan. They deserve to know."  
  
"I will tell them, then," Djaq said. "Now, you were saying something about riders coming this way?"  
  
"The others are already hidden by the South Road," Guy told her.  
  
"Let's not keep them waiting," Djaq said. She laughed as she took off in the direction of the road, and Guy had to run to catch up with her.  
  
When Djaq told John that night that she was a woman, he hardly reacted at all. He simply shrugged and continued to eat the stew that Guy had just dished out for him. Allan, though, insisted loudly that he had known all along and spent the rest of the night casting sidelong glances at her while trying to seem as if he wasn't.  
  
Though for the most part, she would not let them treat her like a woman, she did make some concessions. She let Will curtain off a corner of one of the rooms for her to dress in, and she did not bind her chest as tightly as she once had, especially at night. All of the men noticed, though all of them pretended not to, and when she went to the stream to bathe, all of them conscientiously stayed away from the water until she returned.

#####

It was three days after Guy had discovered Djaq's secret, and he was pressed up against the back of a tree, listening carefully to the sound of hoof beats. The rider was coming at a quick trot. He had not rounded the corner where the outlaws hid yet, but he would soon, and all of them could hear the jangle of the horse's bridle and harness.  
  
As they had more than twenty times before, the outlaws stepped out of the forest in unison, surrounding the rider and making the horse rear up at the sudden stop. When the horse's feet hit the ground again and Guy finally got a good look at the rider, his mouth went dry and his heart was suddenly loud in his ears. Instead of demanding a purse or a piece of jewelry, Guy simply stared in disbelief at the woman on the horse. She wore a plain green riding dress, and though her hair was braided and pinned securely to the back of her head, wind from her ride had loosened errant strands that hung around her face.  
  
"If you are going to rob me, I would ask that you do so quickly. I would like to be on my way," she said. She looked archly at all of them, and Will Scarlett actually looked ashamed as her gaze passed over him.  
  
"Marian…" Guy said. He motioned for the outlaws to lower their weapons, and he stepped closer and gently put one hand on her horse's neck.  
  
At the sound of his voice, she looked at him sharply. "Do I know you?" she asked.  
  
"You do," Guy answered. He met her eyes for the briefest of moments, and then, without thinking twice, he pulled off his hood and removed his mask. The rest of the outlaws looked at him strangely—this was not their normal procedure—but none of them said a thing.  
  
"Guy?" Marian raised one hand to her mouth in shock, and her eyes were wide as she said his name. "You're… you're _dead_."  
  
"Did the Sheriff tell you that?" Guy asked.  
  
"He said you had been wounded too badly to survive, and that you had…" She blinked rapidly and looked away from him. "That you had gone off to die like a dog in the forest."  
  
"He was wrong," Guy said.  
  
"I see that," Marian murmured, looking back at him, her face still pale with surprise. She held out her hand to him. "Why don't you help me down and introduce me to your friends?"  
  
He gave her his hand and held her steady while she dismounted, and the outlaws gathered around to peer curiously at her.  
  
"The big man there is John Little, and this is Allan a Dale," Guy said. John nodded curtly, and Allan dropped into an extravagant, overwrought bow that made Marian smile. "I think you already know Will Scarlett," Guy continued, "and last, we have Djaq. She's our healer from the Holy Land." Marian's eyebrows piqued at the word 'she,' but she simply smiled and said nothing. "Everyone," Guy said awkwardly, never having been very good at introductions, "this is Lady Marian. She is… a friend." Allan looked like he was about to snicker, but a dark look from Guy kept him quiet.  
  
"I'm very pleased to meet all of you," Marian said, looking at each of them in turn, "and I hope you will not mind if I ask to speak to Sir Guy alone for a while."  
  
"Do you still have the 'Sir'?" Allan mused. "Or is that something you lose when you…"  
  
Djaq shushed him and gave him a friendly shove in the direction of the cottage. "We will see you at home later," she said to Guy. Then, with a brief nod to Marian, she led the outlaws back into the forest.  
  
For a while, Guy and Marian stood on either side of her horse's head, not looking at one another. Marian stroked the blaze of white on the animal's forehead, and finally, she regarded Guy with an unreadable expression.  
  
"I mourned for you," she said.  
  
"You did?" He did not know why this surprised him, but it was good to hear that he had been in her thoughts.  
  
"Of course I did," Marian said. She seemed annoyed that he had even asked the question. "You were my friend, and I thought you had died for the sake of doing the right thing."  
  
"I'm sorry," Guy said. "I thought it would be too dangerous to…"  
  
"To send one of your men to Knighton? Or to send one to Robin at Locksley?" She rolled her eyes. " _You_ are the Wolf's Head, unless I miss my guess, and you and the others do more dangerous things than that before breakfast."  
  
"I wasn't worried about us,"' Guy explained. "The danger I wanted to avoid was yours. I didn't want to risk having you seen with us."  
  
"Oh, I see," Marian said. There was an edge to her voice, and Guy's entire body tensed as if bracing for a blow. "You let me think you were dead to protect me."  
  
"Yes," Guy said, wondering what was so revolutionary about the idea. It made perfect sense to him.  
  
Marian opened her mouth as if to speak, thought better of it, and shut it again. Then, she looked back down the road toward the edge of the forest and said, "Will you walk with me to the edge of the wood?"  
  
"For a little ways," Guy said. The road was rough, and he offered her his arm. She took it without hesitation. For a while, neither of them said anything.  
  
"I did not mean to hurt you," Guy said at last.  
  
"It is almost more offensive that you did it having decided I needed to be protected," Marian said. "And I'm not the only one who was grieved by your 'death.'"  
  
"I'm sure the whole shire was in tears for weeks," Guy said sarcastically.  
  
Marian removed her hand from his arm abruptly and fixed him with a hard stare. "Lady Elaine still cries some nights when she speaks of you, and she has the priest in Locksley say prayers for your soul every Sunday."  
  
"She did that?" Guy asked. He did feel guilty now. Elaine had been through enough grief in her life, and he had not meant to cause her more.  
  
"Yes!" She sighed huffily. "The way this works, Guy, is that you have friends who are grieved when they think that you are dead."  
  
He couldn't help it, and he smiled at her exasperation. "You'll have to forgive me," Guy said. "I haven't had a great many of them."  
  
She looked as if she was trying to decide if this was acceptable answer, and Guy hoped it wasn't pity that finally made her features soften.  
  
"Then you shall have to learn," she said, and they continued walking.

The sun was setting as they approached the edge of the forest, and they stopped when there were still trees enough to hide them from view. Beyond the fields where peasants still labored in the dying light, bringing in the last of the autumn harvest, was Knighton Hall.

Marian cast a wistful glance homeward and sighed. "I must go home to my father now and pretend I have not met you," she said. "He is frightened, and he would not understand."

"He is right to be worried," Guy said. "You shouldn't go into the forest alone again. There are other outlaws there, and it was only by chance that you met us and not them." He did not want to think of what might have happened to her if she had run into one of the less savory gangs of men who lived in Sherwood.

"I believe I can take care of myself," she said.

"Please, Marian," Guy said, "Promise me you won't put yourself in danger when there is no need of it. Stay out of the Wood."

Again, Marian took offense at his desire to keep her safe. "I'll promise no such thing," she said. "Besides, how will I be able to tell you what I know if I don't come to the forest?"

"What are you talking about?" Guy asked. He had assumed this would be their last meeting for a long while.

"You need me," Marian said, lowering her voice. "I know what's going on in Nottingham, and I can find out the Sheriff's plans. I could be your eyes and ears in the castle, just as I am the Night Watchman's."

"You still meet with him, then," Guy said slowly. He fought down a sudden stab of jealousy. All of these months that he had not seen her, the Night Watchman had often been at her side, and, he assumed, so had Locksley.

"When I have news for him," Marian said. "And now that I know that you are the Wolf's Head, I can pass messages between you. You could be a great help to one another." Marian sounded eager, and Guy suspected that she was already formulating a plan that involved both him and the Night Watchman.

"Will you let me know his name?" Guy asked. "After all, I can no longer give him away to anyone who matters."

Marian shook her head. "It is still his secret to tell, and to be honest, I doubt that he will give me permission to tell it."

"Even now?" Guy asked. The Night Watchman certainly seemed to have a high opinion of himself, and despite the fact that they had helped each other before, Guy found that he did not like the man very much.

"If it makes you feel better, I will not tell him who you are," Marian said, though she sounded as if she thought Guy was being foolish.

"Do what you'd like," Guy said. "Either way, I will work with him again if the need arises."

"That is good to hear," Marian said.

The peasants in the fields were walking back toward their homes now, long-handled scythes resting on their shoulders.

"You should go before you're missed," Guy said.

"I know." Marian stepped in front of him and took both of his hands in hers, and she had to tilt her chin up to look him in the eye. "I am proud of you, Guy," she said. "You do the things that many of us wish we could."

For a moment, Guy was speechless. Of all the people in the world, Marian's good opinion was the one he valued most, and if she was proud of him, nothing else mattered.

"I do them because of you," he said when he found the words to speak.

"And because you choose to do what you know is right," Marian insisted. "It was not my choice to save the boy instead of kill him…" She suddenly seemed to put the pieces of the story together. "That was Djaq, wasn't it?" she asked.

"It was," Guy confirmed. "I thought she was a boy at the time."

Marian laughed. "It doesn't matter. You still chose to save her. And it was not my choice to go robbing rich men in the forest and sharing your take with the hungry of Nottinghamshire."

"But it was your influence," Guy said.

"Then I am glad of it." She took her hands from his and looked back the way they had come. "How will I find you again when I have news?"

Guy pointed at the road behind them. "A mile back down this path, there's an oak that's been struck by lightning a stone's throw from the east side of the road. Do you know it?" Marian nodded. "Leave me a sign there, a small cloth tied to a branch, and I'll meet you there the next time the sun sets if I can."

"Then I suppose it's goodbye for now," Marian said, again turning her eyes toward home. "It… was good to see you again. My heart is lighter now than it has been."

"I'll watch until you're safely home," Guy told her, helping her into her saddle.

Marian took the reins from him. "Thank you," she said.

He stepped back, and she kicked her horse into a run. Guy watched her as she sped across the field, back straight, hair blowing behind her. She reined in her horse in the yard and handed it over to a servant who came from the stable to meet her. Guy leaned against one of the sentinel trees that marked the beginning of the forest and waited until she stepped over the threshold of the manor and closed the door before he turned away.  



	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Wolf's Head and his companions go after their greatest prize yet.

Four days before All Hallows Eve, Guy found a strip of blue cloth tied to one of the oak's blackened branches, and when the sun set that day, he and his companions were waiting by the blasted tree. Marian did not keep them waiting long, and she raised her hand in greeting as she approached. She looked at the other outlaws uneasily at first, as if surprised that Guy had brought them with him.  
  
"If you have news for me, they need to hear it too," Guy said by way of explanation.  
  
"Very well then," Marian said. She sat down on a gnarled root, and Guy stood next to her. "The Sheriff plans a feast for All Hallows…" she began.  
  
"As he does every year," Guy reminded her.  
  
"Yes, but this feast will be different," she said. "This year, he plans to give a gift of great value to one of his most loyal supporters."  
  
"What's the gift?" Allan asked, suddenly more interested than he had been.  
  
"I'm getting there," Marian said, holding up her hand to tell him to be patient. "Do you remember Lord Southwell?" she asked Guy.  
  
"Well enough," Guy said. Southwell was a sycophantic little man who spoke up in support of the Sheriff's policies loudly and often, simply because it was expedient. He had always seemed harmless enough, and Guy had never paid him much attention.  
  
"He and the Sheriff have been thick as thieves since you left, and he commands considerable attention in the Council. And so, to reward him for his loyalty, the Sheriff plans to recognize him with a toast when the feast is done, and to give him…" She paused for dramatic affect, and every single one of the outlaws leaned forward to catch her next words.  
"Thirty polished emeralds, each one worth a small fortune."  
  
Allan's eyes grew wide, and he whistled appreciatively. "Lord Southwell's a lucky man," he said.  
  
"I was thinking that, with the Night Watchman's help, it might be your luck instead," Marian said.  
  
"Steal the emeralds right out from under him," Will said, smiling at the idea.  
  
"How?" John asked abruptly. He was the only one of them not impressed in the slightest by the richness of the prize at stake. "This stinks of a trap. The Sheriff's not the generous sort, and yet he's giving away a king's ransom to this Southwell? He _knows_. And he will be waiting for us to try and take it."  
  
"It is true that the Sheriff has ordered the guard to be doubled on the night of the feast," Marian said, "but I am sure we can find a way around them."  
  
"And what would that be?" Allan asked, shaking his head. "Are you expecting them to fall asleep and let us walk right by them?" It was obvious that Allan found the idea absurd, but Djaq apparently did not. Her face lit up as if Allan had just given her the answer.  
  
"There are several herbs that, in the right quantity, will put a grown man into a deep sleep," she said.  
  
"That's good," Guy said, the plan taking shape as he spoke. "We'll need as much as you can find. Enough for fifty men."  
  
"How do we get this sleeping potion to the guards?" Will asked.  
  
"The toast," Guy told him. "Every year, the Sheriff allows his soldiers a cup of wine on All Hallows Eve to drink with the rest of the guests. It keeps the men from grumbling that they're working while the rest of the city celebrates, and Vasey knows that one cup of wine won't keep them from their duty."  
  
"But wine laced with sleeping draught…" Djaq said, seeing where Guy was going. The two of them grinned at each other like unruly children.  
  
"And who gets the herb into the kitchens?" John asked, still skeptical.  
  
"That will be my job," Marian said. She saw that Guy was about to protest, and she cut him off before he could say anything. "Any of you would be out of place there, and it will be busy. You cannot avoid being seen. I am known in the castle, and no one will question my presence."

She looked at Guy expectantly, as if waiting for him to argue with her, but instead, he said, "Fine. Make sure that you mix it in to the right drink. The Sheriff does not spend more than he has to on his soldiers' comfort. The less costly wine will be theirs." As much as he hated to admit it, Marian was right. None of them would have been able to move about the castle with such ease, and he supposed that there wasn't too much risk involved.

"We're really going to do this, aren't we?" Allan said, rubbing his hands together.

"The Sheriff will look like a fool, and Allan can write another song," Will said.

"'The Ballad of the Stolen Emeralds,'" Allan said with a melodramatic sweep of his cloak. And as Marian left them and they started towards home, Guy suspected that Allan was writing pieces of it already.

#####

On the afternoon of All Hallows Eve, while the outlaws were preparing to sneak into the castle, Will pulled Guy aside.  
  
"I have something for you," Will said, reaching for an object on the work bench he had set up in one corner of the cottage. "People call you the Wolf's Head, so I thought that you should look it. Here." He handed Guy a leather mask, and as Guy turned it over in his hands, he saw that it was the face of a wolf. The cut of the eyes gave it a predatory look, it had two triangular points at the top for ears, and it was shaped along the bottom to mimic the slender lines of a wolf's muzzle. The nose extended just a little longer than it should have, and Will had covered the whole thing with delicate embossing that suggested fur.  
  
"Try it. See if it fits," Will urged.  
  
There were already leather ties hanging from either side of the mask, and Guy slowly put it up to his face and secured it behind his head. Will had done a fine job, for it fit snugly on Guy's features without being uncomfortable. He could see clearly, and it felt right to be wearing it. The people had been calling him the Wolf's Head for months, but now, for the first time, he truly felt the name was his own.

"It suits you," Will told him.  
  
"This is a fine gift," Guy said, running his fingers over the leather.  
  
Will shrugged, humble as always. "Just something I'd been working on. I thought tonight might be a good time to give it to you. It is our first appearance at the castle."  
  
"And we shall do our best to make a good impression," Guy said, smiling like a hunter who had just scented his prey.

#####

They entered the castle one by one. Will and Allan went first, hidden in a group of servants who were returning from the market. John gave a farmer two gold coins to let him and Djaq drive the man's wagon full of apples through the gate, and Guy slipped through while the guards were arguing with a butcher over payment for meat brought for the feast.  
  
Once inside, there was little for Guy to do but wait. He needed to keep out of the way of the servants who were setting up tables and decorations in the courtyard, and so he carefully let himself inside through a servants' entrance and climbed up to the upper level of the castle. There were fewer people there, though Guy did have to hide around a corner several times while harried serving maids bustled through the corridors carrying linens and bedclothes for the Sheriff's guests.  
  
He did not quite know where he was going until he arrived at the door of the chamber that had once been his. It was not one of the better rooms in the castle, but it had been spacious and private. He listened for a moment, and when he heard no movement inside, he rapped lightly on the heavy wooden door. No one answered, and so Guy gave the door a push. It was not locked. Glancing down the corridor one last time, he stepped inside.  
  
Everything of value was gone, of course—the heavy chest filled with gold that had stood in the corner, the tapestry with the hunters and the white stag that had hung on the wall, and the silver candlesticks and inkwell that had sat on the table were nowhere to be seen. Guy ran his finger over the mantle, and it came away covered in dust. The room had not been cleaned in months, and Guy doubted that anyone had been in it since the Sheriff had confiscated his belongings. It was the perfect place to hide. He pulled a chair up to one side of the window and sat down to watch the preparations for the feast down below.  
  
At sunset, servants came to light the torches that ringed the courtyard, and soon the tables were filled with nobles, wealthy merchants, and their families, all dressed in their finest. The Sheriff and Lord Southwell sat at the head table. In the seat that should have been Guy's, there was a tall, blocky man Guy had never seen before. The company feasted on roasted meat, fresh bread made with grain from the recent harvest, and ripe fruits from Nottingham's orchards, and Guy's stomach rumbled at the good smells rising up to the room in the tower where he hid.  
  
When the kitchen staff began to clear away the dishes from the meal, Guy snuck back out into the hallway and made his way down to the courtyard. Though the torches lit the center where the tables were, there were plenty of corners and shadows that remained in darkness for him to hide in. Soon, serving women with wine in silver pitchers were moving among the castle guests, filling their cups for the toast. The guards, too, were given their drink, laughing with the pretty girls who served them. Guy watched carefully as each guard had his cup filled. He did not know if Marian had been successful in drugging the wine, but he had no choice to trust that she had. If she had not, their venture would be a short-lived one.  
  
When all of the guests had been served, the Sheriff rose from his seat. He was dressed in a blood-red doublet, a maroon shirt, and black breeches. Guy was not sure he believed in such things, but the Sheriff looked very much like one of the evil spirits the villagers feared were abroad on All Hallows Eve. And when he flashed an insincere, toothy smile at the assembled nobles, the likeness was even more startling.  
  
"Good people," the Sheriff began, "it was very kind of you to come to our little party tonight…"

"Hear hear!" someone yelled drunkenly. Vasey waited for a moment through the smattering of applause that followed, nodding magnanimously at the recognition.

"I ask that all of you join me in raising a glass to the King, may he stay safe in the Holy Land as he fights for England and our precious faith," the Sheriff continued when the noise had died down. He said it as quickly, as if by rote, and he drank with little enthusiasm. Some of the guards, Guy noticed, drank with more gusto, but that was perhaps because it was the first wine they had been allowed all night.

"And now, let us turn our attention to one who stayed at home. Not because he was not willing to fight for his God or his king, but because he knew that with so many of our finest men away, his loyalty and wisdom would be needed here." Vasey motioned for Lord Southwell to rise, and he did so, acknowledging the company with a perfunctory nod. "Let us drink to my friend Lord Southwell's health, ladies and gentlemen. By his many services to me, he serves you, and he serves England."

The company drank amidst scattered cheers this time, and many of the guards downed the rest of the wine in their cups. Guy watched them closely for signs of drowsiness. Djaq had said the drug might not take effect immediately, and Guy hoped that Vasey was long-winded enough to give it time to work.

"It is unfortunate but true," the Sheriff said over the clatter of two hundred cups being set on tables at once, "that many times, virtue must be its own reward, that loyalty goes unrecognized, and good work goes unnoticed." He held out his hand, and a servant who had been standing by his chair gave him a small leather pouch. "Let it never be said, however, that this is true in Nottingham." He closed his fist around the pouch's drawstrings and thrust his arm out toward the crowed for effect. All eyes were on the Sheriff, and no one saw that one of the guards who had been standing against the wall was now leaning against it with his chin resting on his chest and his spear on the ground at his side.

There was a flash of movement at a window to the side of the courtyard, and Guy looked up to see Will Scarlett there. Will saw him as well and nodded slightly. This meant the rest of the outlaws were in position, and when the moment was right, they would be ready. Guy began to creep along the wall until he was even with the Sheriff's table, stepping over sleeping guards as he went.

"I want it to be known that this is how I reward my true friends," Vasey said. "And so I am presenting Lord Southwell here with this small token of my appreciation—emeralds from the Orient, one for each day of the month during which he serves me well."

There were gasps of astonishment from the crowd. All of them were wealthy, but the small bag in the Sheriff's hands was still worth more money than most of them could ever hope to gain by honest means, and behind the polite applause, Guy could see envy written clearly on their faces.

Just as the Sheriff was about to hand the pouch to Southwell, an arrow flew through the air, passing inches from their hands, and struck the table, where it quivered for a moment before growing still. The Sheriff's head snapped up, following the path of the arrow up to the battlements.

"It's the Night Watchman!" someone shouted, and sure enough, the familiar hooded figure was running along the top of the castle wall. Everyone in the courtyard craned their necks to see him. With everyone's attention on what was going on above them, no one noticed Guy dashing through the courtyard until he had already jumped onto the platform that raised the head table above all the rest.

The Sheriff's fingers were still tightly wrapped around the pouch's strings, and when he saw Guy in his wolf's mask standing before him with his sword drawn. He regarded Guy with sharp eyes. For a moment, Guy was worried that somehow, Vasey might have recognized him, but then, the Sheriff laughed.

"An unexpected guest, ladies and gentleman! It seems the Wolf's Head himself has deigned to join us tonight, as well," Vasey said, then he raised his voice and shouted, "Guards!"

The entire courtyard was still for a moment, as if everyone were waiting to hear the tramp of booted feet, but no one came. Several seconds passed, and the crowd began to whisper restlessly. Guy held his sword up to the Sheriff's throat.

"Looks like your men are asleep on the job, Sheriff," Allan's voice came from the far end of the table, and Vasey turned his head slightly toward the sound. Allan was standing at the edge of the platform, grinning and pointing at one of the sleeping guards. There were muffled screeches from the crowd as Djaq, Will, John, and the Night Watchman all revealed themselves at various places around the courtyard, weapons drawn. Guy held his hand out, and the Sheriff, wrinkling his nose in disgust, turned the pouch over to him.

The instant that Guy lowered his sword, the tall stranger sitting on the Sheriff's left sprung into action, drawing the sword hanging at his side as he rushed at Guy. Whoever the man was, he was quick and ruthless and well-trained. They fought down the center of the courtyard, nobles and merchants hurriedly vacating their tables to get out of the way of their blades.

"Kill the Wolf's Head for me, Bollen, and one of those emeralds is yours!" the Sheriff shouted. Lord Southwell turned a little pale at the promise, but he did not object. With time, Guy thought he could have been more than a match for his opponent, but they needed to get away _now_ , before the shock wore off and some of the nobles who knew how to wield a sword decided to join in the fight. So, Guy gave up ground, drawing the man the Sheriff had called Bollen toward the wall near the gate. Thinking that he sensed weakness, Bollen attacked with more force than ever, and, assuming he had Guy cornered, he did not see John or the staff that knocked his legs out from under him until it was too late. He landed on his back, and John and Guy ran for the gate.

All was confusion in the courtyard now, and just as Guy and John were about to run out the open gate, Djaq met them and quickly shook her head, leading them into one of the column-lined corridors that encircled the castle gardens. Allan was already waiting there.

"Let me see them" Djaq said urgently once they were sure that no one was pursuing them. "Let me see the emeralds."

"Now?" Guy asked. He hadn't intended to open the pouch until they were safely back at the cottage.

"Please. Trust me." Djaq said. "We don't have much time."

Guy handed the small bag to her, and she untied the knot and poured some of the stones out in her hand. Allan reached for one and held it up with a skeptical look on his face.

"I told you so, didn't I?" Allan said.

"It was a trick," Djaq explained. "These are not emeralds. These are pebbles."

She poured the rest of them into Guy's hand, and he let the smooth little rocks fall through his fingers.

"Damn it," he whispered angrily. The rest of them did not seem shocked by his profanity.

"I always thought it would be stupid to have something worth that much out in the open," Allan said. "The real gems are probably hidden somewhere safe."

"If they exist at all," John said.

"The emeralds are real enough," Guy insisted. "Southwell may be a flatterer, but he's canny, too. He wouldn't let the Sheriff get away with _pretending_ to give him emeralds. He'd want the proof of his favored status."

"Does Southwell have rooms in the castle?" Djaq asked.

"He does tonight," Guy said. "I'll start in the guest wing. The rest of you, spread out. Find Will. Tell him what happened, and start looking for guards posted in front of doors where there should be none. Djaq, how much time do we have before our wine wears off?"

"An hour, two at the most," she told him.

"Then we'll be sure to be gone before then," Guy said, and he took off in the direction of the Sheriff's finest guest chambers.

#####

The halls of the castle were filled with people—mostly frightened servants leading frightened wealthy men to the relative safety of their rooms—and Guy had to be quick to avoid them when they passed by. He did not think any of them would try to fight him, but they would probably make a great deal of noise.  
  
There was no doubt that the luxurious rooms near the Sheriff's own had been assigned to Southwell, but there was no sign of the man when Guy entered. Quickly, he searched the chest at the end of the bed and the wardrobe. He threw back the covers on the beds and felt all of the pillows, and still he found nothing. Guy was beginning to think that perhaps the Sheriff and Southwell had indeed outwitted him when the door to the room swung open. Guy had his sword out and ready, but it was only Allan who stepped inside.  
  
"We found someone you might want to talk to," Allan said. "Come on."  
  
Guy followed Allan down one flight of stairs, then another. They had reached the cellar of the castle when the came upon Djaq, Will, and John standing over a terrified merchant. He was a thin man with a ring on each finger of both hands.  
  
"Who's this?" Guy asked.  
  
"This," Djaq said, "is the Sheriff's jeweler."  
  
"The one who provided him with Southwell's emeralds," Will added.  
  
"I see." Guy knelt by the jeweler's side. "Listen carefully, because I'm only going to say this once. We know this bag was a decoy." He held up the pouch he had taken from the Sheriff earlier. "But I think you know where the real ones are. The Sheriff and Southwell probably had you keep them safe until after All Hallows." He leaned forward threateningly, and the jeweler flinched. "Tell us where they are, and we'll let you go on your way."  
  
"The Sheriff will kill me," the jeweler said.  
  
"But the Sheriff is not here right now. _I_ am. And I will break your fingers if you don't speak. We'll see how well you can do your work then." It was a cruel threat, and Guy knew it, but he would not leave the castle having put all of them in danger for nothing. The jeweler pursed his lips, shook his head, and refused to talk. "John, give me your staff," Guy said.  
  
John handed the thick length of wood to him, and the man they had captured broke.  
  
"In my workshop!" he hissed. "The emeralds are locked in an iron box in my workshop in the city."  
  
"You're going to take us there," Guy said. "Quietly."

"Has the Sheriff paid you for the emeralds?" Will asked. The jeweler nodded.

"Good," Guy said. "Then we steal from him, not from you."

Djaq and Will hauled the man to his feet, and they forced him to walk in between them as they wound through the cellars.

"Here," Guy said at last as they rounded a corner into a low-beamed room that smelled of earth and grain. "There's a trap door in the ceiling that opens from the inside. It lets out into a courtyard outside the castle walls where the farmers bring their grain tributes."

"I know the spot," Will said, and he climbed up on top of the bags of grain that were piled under the trap door and unlatched the door. Quickly, he scrambled out. He returned a few moments later and said, "It's safe. Come on." One by one, Will helped them pull themselves out of the cellar. The jeweler had the most difficulty, but even he finally hauled himself over the lip of the trap door into the small courtyard.

"Lead the way," Guy said to their prisoner once all of them were out. Sighing, the jeweler picked himself up from the ground and started walking down one of the narrow streets that led into the city.  



	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang's escape is more complicated than expected.

For once, Guy was glad for the chaos of All Hallows Eve. They were not the only people on the streets, and more than once they were greeted heartily by groups of masked, cloaked revelers. Most of them did not even look twice at the tall man in the wolf's mask and his companions.  
  
The street where the smiths and jewelers had their shops was relatively quiet. Most of the buildings were locked up tight, and only occasionally could a candle be seen burning in an upper window. The Sheriff's jeweler stopped at the door to a large, well-kept shop front and shakily withdrew a key from his pocket. He opened the door and let the outlaws in. Then, he lit a candle and went to a cupboard in the back of the room and unlocked it while they watched. He brought out a small box that would sit easily in a man's hand and put it on the table in front of Guy.  
  
"This is it," he said.  
  
"Open it," Guy demanded. "And then give me the key."  
  
The jeweler took another small brass key from his pocket and slipped it into the front of the box. They all heard the click of the lock as it opened. Carefully, he opened the lid and let Guy look inside. There, nestled on a piece of black velvet, were the emeralds. Djaq took the candle from the jeweler and held it close. The stones winked and sparkled in the light, and she picked up one of the thin, round emeralds that was slightly smaller than one of her fingernails.  
  
"These are real," she said.  
  
Guy picked up one of the smaller gems and gave it to the jeweler.  
  
"If the Sheriff blames you for what we have done, you will be in danger, and I am sorry for it. If you need it, use this to get you and your family as far from Nottingham as possible."  
  
The jeweler quickly pocketed the stone and handed Guy the key.  
  
"You have what you wanted, now get out of my workshop," he said icily, and the outlaws were more than happy to comply.

#####

Though it was after sunset, the city gates were still open, and local gentry who had been at the castle for the feast were heading home. One particular retinue had a good thirty people in it, masters on horseback and servants on foot, and all of them were chattering loudly about the excitement at the castle. The guards let them pass without question, and they did not notice that five more people had joined the party as they poured through the gate. Guy glanced over his shoulder briefly as they left the city behind them. He had not seen what had happened to the Night Watchman, and he hoped the man had gotten away clean.  
  
They had tied their horses in a scraggly stand of trees a hundred feet from the city walls, and when they had mounted and readied themselves to ride back into the forest with no outcry from the guards above them, Guy thought that luck had decided to smile on them. But then, just as they were going to break the cover of the trees, fifteen guards on horseback thundered up Nottingham's main thoroughfare, heading for the gates, the Sheriff's man Bollen at their head.  
  
"It's barely been an hour!" Allan said in dismay. "Shouldn't they at least be… I don't know… funny in the head for a while?"  
  
"They must have been in another part of the city," Guy said.  
  
Djaq furrowed her brow. "Then they did not drink the wine…"  
  
"If we run now, they will see us," Will said.  
  
"But they will find us if we stay here," Guy reminded them, "and right now we have the advantage of a head start. Ride hard and meet back home." He kicked his horse into a run toward the forest with the others following close behind.  
  
Bollen shouted at his men, and as soon as they had ridden over the drawbridge, they turned together and veered off the road to chase the outlaws.  
  
Guy reached the forest first, and because it was dark, he had to slow. It would not do to have his horse twist an ankle or break a leg because he had been pushing it too fast. Still, he had been in the forest at night enough to ride with confidence, and the trees on the outskirts of Sherwood were not packed too closely together. He could hear his friends nearby, and he could hear Bollen and the city guards swearing as they crashed through the forest. They rode quietly for a while, and soon they heard no one but themselves.  
  
Guy set as quick a pace as he thought safe as they rode deeper into Sherwood. He did not know if the Sheriff's men had turned back to Nottingham or if they had simply learned to keep their voices down, and he wanted to put as much distance between them and the city as he could. They were several miles into the forest when the noise of their passing disturbed a family of birds that had been nesting by the path, and they flew up into the face of Allan's horse. Allan covered his eyes with his forearm, and his horse reared up in fright and threw him. He landed hard on his right arm and cried out in pain.  
  
Djaq reined in her own mount and was at Allan's side before any of the rest of them realized what had happened. Guy dismounted as well and joined her.  
  
"Allan," she said insistently, sitting on the ground beside him and putting her hand on one side of his face. He opened his eyes and looked at her, and then he moaned in pain. "I know it hurts. You have to try not to move."  
  
"Is he all right?" John asked as he joined them.  
  
"He's alive," Guy told him. "Where's Will?"  
  
"Catching Allan's horse," John said.  
  
Djaq had completed her inspection of Allan's arm, and she did not look happy. "It is broken. Very badly," she announced.  
  
"Can you help him once we're home?" Guy asked.  
  
Djaq shook her head. "It's too far to the cottage. I can bind it so he cannot make it worse, but that will not hold for long. I need to set it, and I need to set it soon if he is to use his arm again."  
  
"Unless I'm wrong, we're less than a mile from Locksley," John said.  
  
"We can't go there." Guy was adamant.  
  
"Go where?" Will asked. He approached the four of them leading two horses: his and Allan's.  
  
"Allan's arm is broken, and I need a safe, clean place to set it," Djaq said. "John says Locksley is close."  
  
Will nodded. "It is." He looked at Guy, confused. "Why can't we go there?"  
  
"Who are you planning to ask to risk themselves and their families for us?" Guy demanded.  
  
All of them were quiet for a moment, and then Will shrugged. "We could ask Robin," he suggested. "His status might protect him, but he won't need it to because no one in Locksley will betray him or us, and besides, the manor is more private than the houses in the village."  
  
Guy did not like the idea of asking Robin of Locksley for help. He was not sure if the man would give it to him, and he certainly did not want to be in Robin's debt.  
  
"I say we do it," Djaq said. "If this Robin will help us, then it is better that we go to him than back to the cottage." She fixed Guy with a fiercely protective look in her eye, and he had a feeling that even if he forbade it, she would not listen. Djaq did not negotiate where the welfare of one she considered her patient was concerned.  
  
"Fine. We ride to Locksley as soon as Djaq is ready," Guy said.

#####

The moon was high overhead as they rode cautiously toward the manor. Djaq had given Allan a pinch of the herb that she had used to drug the guards, and he was half asleep as he leaned against Will's chest on the horse they shared. When they got closer, John came to hold Allan steady while Will slipped to the ground and ran over to the servant's entrance to the house. He knocked on the door, and it seemed to Guy that he waited for a long time before anyone answered. Will acted as if he knew the serving girl who finally came to meet him, and he spoke urgently to her for a while. When he was done, she nodded and disappeared for a while before returning with Robin of Locksley himself. Will waved Guy and the rest of them over.  
  
"Will says you're the Wolf's Head, and that you need my help," Robin said, eyeing Guy suspiciously.  
  
"One of my men was wounded running from the Sheriff's guards. Our physician says that his arm will not heal right if she doesn't treat him soon. I… thought that you might let her help him here." He stood up very straight as he said it, and he could hardly bear to look Robin in the eye.  
  
Robin's mouth opened very slowly, and he narrowed his eyes at Guy. "Gisborne?"  
  
There was no point in denying it. "Yes. Don't say that name too loudly," Guy cautioned him.

"Were you followed?" Robin asked.

Guy shook his head angrily. "Do you think I would be foolish enough to bring the Sheriff's men here if we had been?"

"Then come in quickly. All of you," Robin said. "Take your wounded man into the kitchen. There's still a fire burning there." The outlaws quietly crept inside, John and Will supporting a half-conscious Allan. "The kitchen is there." Robin pointed the way, but Guy already knew it. He was about to follow the rest of his men when Robin said, "Gisborne? A word?"

Knowing full well that Djaq had all the help she needed, Guy followed Robin to the hall at Locksley manor. There were three candles burning on the table and the remains of a fire in the fireplace.

"You were surprised to see me," Guy said before Robin could say anything. "Did Marian not tell you?"  
Robin shook his head ruefully. "No she did not. She kept it from me, just as she refuses to tell me who the Night Watchman is."  
  
Guy was glad to hear that Marian had kept his secret, even from Robin. He would have to thank her for it when he saw her next.  
  
"And yet still you let us in," Guy said. The next words were difficult for him to say, but they were also true. "We are in your debt."  
  
"I know you are," Robin said. "But… in a way, I am also in yours. You help the people in this village and in all the others in a way that I cannot." He sat down in the high-backed chair by the fire, and he looked more tired than he ever had since Guy had known him. "If you want to repay me, go upstairs and talk to my mother." Guy was not the only one having problems forcing the words out of his mouth, and Robin hurried through the rest of what he had to say. "She misses you, I think, and it would do her good to know you are alive."  
  
"If you think so, I will speak to her," Guy said. Before he could reach the stairs, though, there was a knock at the front door. Guy reached for his sword, and Robin motioned for him to hide a little ways up the stairs.

Guy checked to see that his mask was still firmly in place as Robin answered the door, and he was poised to spring when he heard Robin say, "Marian?"

"I've just come from the castle, and I thought that you want to hear the news," she said, stepping inside and taking off her cloak. "The Night Watchman and the Wolf's Head…." She realized that she and Robin were not alone in the room, and she turned his head to look at Guy. "Oh. It… appears you already know." Guy sheathed his sword and came back down the stairs. "What are you doing here?" she asked him.

"No need to speak quietly," Robin said from his chair by the fire. "I know who he is."

"Allan broke his arm. Djaq's setting it in the kitchen," Guy told her.

"And you came… here?" She sounded as if she didn't quite believe it herself. She knew that Guy had little love for Robin.

"It was close, and Locksley was generous enough to help us," Guy said. "I am…" He nearly choked on the word, "grateful." Eager to change the subject, he asked Marian, "Where were you tonight? I did not see you at the castle, but you seem to have heard what happened."

"There were many people at the feast," she said. "You must have missed me in the crowd."

Guy supposed that what she said was possible, but he thought he remembered seeing her father Edward, and Marian had not been at his side.

"Do you have the emeralds?" she asked. She obviously considered the question of her whereabouts closed. "You may give me the share you promised to the Night Watchman now, if you'd like."

Guy had brought the box and the key with him into the manor, and he opened it and counted out five of the gems to her.  
"One sixth of the take for one sixth of the work," he said. "That was our agreement, wasn't it?"

"It was," she said, closing her fingers around the emeralds. "He will be pleased when I give these to him." She smiled mischievously.

"You seem pleased with yourself," Guy commented.

"Aren't you?" Marian asked. She sat down on a bench at the fire next to Robin. "I just helped a very brave group of men, and one woman, to make the Sheriff look like an idiot in front of most of the important people in the shire."

When she put it that way, Guy had to smile. "We did, didn't we…" he admitted.

"If we can do that… think of what else might be possible," she said.

Before she could begin to outline their next scheme, Guy said, "Right now, I'm wondering if some food might be possible." He raised an eyebrow at Robin.

Locksley nodded. "I'll have meals warmed for you and your people. But while I do that… go see my mother."

Guy nodded briefly in farewell to Marian, and she insistently waved him up the stairs.

#####

Guy could see light under the door to Lady Elaine's room as he approached. He had taken off his mask and hung it from his belt, but he was still dirty from the chase—certainly not fit to enter a lady's presence under normal circumstances. The door was already cracked open, but he knocked anyway.

"Come in," her voice came from inside. He gently pushed the door aside and stepped into her chamber. She was in bed already, and her long grey braid hung over one shoulder. She was embroidering by the light of several candles placed near her bed, and without looking up, she said, "I heard voices downstairs, Robin. Who is here at this time of…" She looked up, and her needle slipped from her fingers and she drew the sign of the cross on her breast.  
  
"Sir Guy… You can't be here. You're dead." Her eyes were a little wild with fear, but there was a terrible sadness there as well.  
  
"I'm not a ghost, Elaine," Guy said, slowly coming closer.  
  
"The old stories say the dead walk the earth on All Hallows, thinking they still live."  
  
Guy shook his head and held out his arm for her to touch. "I'm as real as any man. The Sheriff lied to you. See for yourself."  
  
Gingerly, she touched his hand, and she looked surprised when he did not dissolve into mist. She put one hand to her mouth and gasped in shock.  
  
"It is you." She reached out and touched his face, and pulled him down into her arms for a moment. Her eyes were wet when she let him go. "Where have you been?" she asked.  
  
"Hiding in the forest so the Sheriff does not catch me and turn his lie into the truth," Guy said.  
  
Her fingers caught at the mask hanging at his belt. "And what is this?"  
  
He was going to lie to her, at first, but at the last moment, he changed his mind. If Robin of Locksley knew his secret, Elaine, who Guy liked far better, had the right to know it too.  
  
"You've heard of the Wolf's Head?" Guy asked.  
  
"Of course. Robin and Marian both speak of him often. They admire his courage, I think…" she said. "That… is you, isn't it?" Guy nodded. He was glad to see that though she was bedridden, Elaine's mind was still sharp.  
  
"Not of my own choosing," Guy said. "I didn't set out to be an outlaw."  
  
"The way I heard it, you chose to be disgraced rather than act against your conscience," she said. "Do not be ashamed of it. I'd rather you be an outlaw than the man the Sheriff wanted to turn you into." Though her voice was weak, there was some heat in it. The vehemence with which she spoke was something he had not heard for a long time, and it surprised him. She must have seen his confusion, for her face softened. "When you began to carry out the Sheriff's orders, I worried for you," she said. "It is the mother in me. I could not help myself."  
  
"And now?" Guy asked hesitantly.  
  
"I will still worry," Elaine said, "but I could not be prouder of you if you were my own son. If I were a younger woman, I would want to run to the forest with you myself so I might be of service."  
  
Guy looked away in discomfort at the praise, but he had to chuckle at the idea of Lady Elaine's dainty handiwork in the roughness of the cottage. "You would be most welcome," he told her. "I should leave you now, let you rest." He took her hand and kissed it, and she smiled up at him.  
  
"You must come and visit me again some day soon," she said.  
  
"I promise that I will," Guy said. "And you must take care of yourself."  
  
"You needn't worry. My son sees to that," Elaine assured him.  
  
When Guy left her, she was working on her embroidery again, a spray of red and yellow flowers on a white cloth.

#####

It was nearly dawn when the outlaws left for home. Allan was still sleeping in one of Locksley's guest rooms, and Djaq had made Robin repeat her instructions for the wounded man's care back to her three times before she was satisfied that he knew them. Robin saw them off, and when Djaq, Will, and John had already started off across the fields toward the trees, Guy lingered for a little while.  
  
"You know you can count on me in the future," Robin said, staring after those who had just gone.  
  
Can I?" Guy asked, as if he didn't believe it. He was not sure that he did.  
  
"Yes. You can. You know I hate the Sheriff, and you know that I would do anything to stop his abuse of power. Anything that you need…that does not put my mother's life in danger…"  
  
Guy nodded. He understood. He would not have put such a mother in danger either.  
  
"Then I will take you at your word, and together, we can make the Sheriff think that God himself is conspiring against him," Guy said.  
  
Robin smiled then, and it was the broad, wide smile of the young man he must have been before he went on crusade.  
  
"And who's to say that he isn't?" Robin asked, raising his eyes to the sky.  
  
Both of them laughed together then, and Guy rode back into Sherwood with a contented spirit and a fortune in emeralds tucked neatly against his heart.

The End

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter, so this bears saying again... 
> 
> Many thanks to [](https://endcredits.livejournal.com/profile)[endcredits](https://endcredits.livejournal.com/), who graciously agreed to be my beta at short notice and gave me both excellent advice and much-needed encouragement. Also, this story probably wouldn't be here without my girlfriend (now wife) Rae, who read it first.


End file.
